Sky (Walker) Fall
by SpellCleaver
Summary: Multiple times Vader nearly recovers the son Obi-Wan stole from him at age two, and each time Luke escapes back to rejoin the Rebellion, his beloved twin sister, and everything he can remember knowing or believing in. But it would be very un-Sith-like for Vader to just give up, wouldn't it? Short Story AU
1. Prologue

.

 _Prologue_

 _17 BBY_

Perhaps it wasn't particularly Sith-like, but the moment Luke started wheezing Vader was up in arms and panicking.

His son's asthma was the reason they as good as lived on a Star Destroyer, rather than the castle Vader's master had built for him on Mustafar. The location on the volcanic planet was advantageous as far as Vader's meditation was concerned - the pain and anger he associated with the area was more than sufficient to fuel the Dark Side of the Force - but the high amount of ash in the air had turned out to have a negative effect on Luke's lungs. The first time he'd struggled to breathe, Vader had nearly killed the medic in his panic. When the boy was only six months old, they'd been forced to move onto the ship.

Now, he mastered his fear long enough to search for Luke's inhaler. His son took a few deep breaths, and Vader tried not to worry or crowd the child while he calmed down. Soon enough, Luke's breathing had levelled out again.

Vader would have sighed in relief had the respirator allowed for such irregularity. Luke was fine. It was fine. Everything was fine.

He couldn't find it in him to refuse when his son tilted his head back to look up at him and raised his arms in the distinct motion Vader knew meant he wanted to be carried. A small huff escaped him as he bent down, undetected by the vocoder, and held Luke against him as he strode through the corridors.

He felt the wondering thoughts of some of the stormtroopers on duty at how less threatening he looked when toting a two year old boy around on his hip and scowled under the mask, the expression tugging at the damaged skin on his face. But then Luke rested his head against his chest, and all malicious thoughts fled his mind.

 _How could I have helped created something so precious?_ was a question he asked himself every day. He didn't know the answer. Luke was nearly all Padmé's doing; he was sure of it.

It wasn't until he reached the set of rooms that adjoined his that he realised Luke had fallen asleep. He gently nudged him awake when he did, and set him down on the large bed in the centre of the room, taking care to pull his spaceship-patterned duvet up to his chin. He watched for a moment as Luke shifted in his bedsheets, and opened wide blue eyes.

Vader turned to address the stormtrooper on duty. TY-529, who his son had taken to affectionately calling "Ty", was an especially competent member of the 501st - he had to be, as Vader would entrust his son's safety to no one but the best whilst he was otherwise occupied and couldn't do it himself.

"See that he doesn't escape his rooms again," he ordered. How Luke had gotten out and about the ship in the early hours of the morning in the first place was beyond him, but his son was hardly a predictable person. Force knew Vader had never been, even when he was still Anakin Skywalker. "I will come for him in the morning."

TY-529 nodded and saluted. Vader left the room and returned to the meeting he'd stormed out of unexpectedly when he'd received word that his son was gone from his rooms.

The meeting itself was a wreck. It had never been a more fervent wish of Vader's that he could Force-choke Governor Tarkin - at least that would solve the debate the Emperor was apparently having over who to give control of the future Death Star to. Vader knew that the super-weapon itself was a waste of time anyway - the power to destroy planets was _nothing_ compared to the Force - but it was Palpatine's pet product, and so much had already been invested into it that he doubted his insights would be of any use in dissuading his master from further participation in this venture.

So he was already in a dark mood when he stormed back to his quarters, intending on making use of his meditation chamber to draw on the Dark Side further. But something gave him pause.

Luke wasn't in his rooms.

He didn't need to look to know this - the exploding supernova that was his son's Force signature was conspicuously absent from the adjoining chambers. Nevertheless, he marched in to see for himself anyway.

A man - a probe of his unconscious mind revealed him to be TY-529 - was lying prostrate on the floor, his stormtrooper armour notably absent, with only the uniform underneath it. Vader's gaze immediately shot to the bed. The sheets were ruffled and tousled, the covers flung back. And Luke was gone.

Vader turned, his cloak snapping at his heels, and marched back into the corridor of the Star Destroyer. He searched the ship with the Force, ignoring the lesser imprints left by the Force-blind crew and troopers and focusing on two particularly bright trails.

Both of which converged and joined in the room he'd just left.

Luke's he knew like he knew the engine of his TIE fighter - he'd felt that blazing presence when he was still a foetus in his mother's womb, had felt it haunt his thoughts in the days between the moment he last saw Padmé and the moment he got Luke back, had relentlessly protected and cherished it in the two years his son had been alive. He was so used to being in close proximity to it that it seemed a thousand times brighter than the Force signature it was mingled with.

But he knew that signature as well. As familiar as the surface of Tatooine - carved in excruciating detail on his memory, despite the time that had passed since he last interacted with it. His old master's Force presence felt the same as it always did, and a part of him ached at the memories it brought up.

 _You were my brother, Anakin! I loved you!_

He clenched his fists. Obi-Wan. Of course it would be Obi-Wan who sought to abduct his son, steal him away, teach him to hate his father. Of course the old man wouldn't have given up so easily.

The man had already turned his wife against him - why not his son, too?

After all, it had been Obi-Wan with whom he'd found Luke two years ago, his son only a few days old. He'd heard the rumours that his old master was in a system in the Outer Rim shortly after being released from the medics' care, and fresh from being told by Palpatine that he'd killed his beloved Padmé, he'd gone hunting the man who had taken everything from him.

He hadn't managed to kill the Jedi Knight. But he'd found something far more precious than revenge.

And now that very precious something was gone.

He would kill Obi-Wan this time. _He would kill him_. How _dare_ he take his son, _Padmé's_ son, their _child_ -

He would finally kill him for this.

Vader searched for the lingering traces of the two escapees. Neither was still on the ship - he'd been gone _three hours_ how had Obi-Wan gotten them off the ship so _quickly_ how were they _already gone_ \- and he barked out commands for the Star Destroyer to be moved in pursuit as soon as possible.

He returned to Luke's rooms. Being in there without his son was a strange experience - and one he did not intend on repeating, he decided as he drew his lightsaber. The hum of the crimson blade made his mask vibrate in an oddly calming way, and the arc of light it made burned against his retinas as he slashed it experimentally in the air. He slashed it again, and stormtrooper TY-529's head rolled across the floor.

Luke might be upset about the "disappearance" of his friend Ty when he returned, but the man had failed him. He had allowed Vader's son to be abducted by a dangerous renegade, and was obviously a liability amongst the 501st - a legion that was meant to be the elite of the elite.

(A part of Vader knew that the man _had_ been skilled, had likely been severely outmatched and been knocked unconscious as a result. The rest of Vader didn't care. This was his son.)

This was _Luke_.

Luke, whose golden head of hair looked so much like his father's once had, who smiled when he saw Darth Vader and laughed when the Sith Lord picked him up, who cried when he saw droids being taken apart, who insisted on being able to watch the stars turn to streaks of light every time they made a hyperspace jump, whose blue eyes were always wide and guileless, who had garnered the fondness of every stormtrooper assigned to guard him, Luke, Luke, _Luke_ -

The body was still cooling when Vader swept from the room to harass stormtroopers and officers into moving faster, working faster, _finding his son_ faster.

By the time the night cycle on the ship had ended, at least seven more personnel were choked to death or used for idle lightsaber practice. And little Luke Skywalker had still not been found.


	2. Luke and Leia Meet

.

 _Luke and Leia Meet Each Other_

 _7 BBY_

Luke probably should have known something was wrong the moment Uncle Owen told him to return to the homestead at least two hours earlier than they were due to stop work. But instead of questioning it, he grabbed the opportunity with eager hands and didn't argue as they both got on the speeder and went home.

It wasn't until they were home that he began to worry. Aunt Beru was nowhere to be seen. And instead of the comforting presence of his aunt, he found the old wizard Ben Kenobi who lived over by the Jundland Wastes.

Uncle Owen hated Old Ben. What was he doing here now?

Luke didn't have time to finish speculating on the myriad of reasons it could be (the most creative of which included the concept that Ben was an estranged lover of Uncle Owen and had taken Aunt Beru's absence as a chance to profess his undying love; he really needed to stop letting Biggs making him watch soap operas on the holonet with him) before his uncle had barked, "Kenobi!" in a (as Aunt Beru would chastise him for) rude greeting Old Ben had done nothing to deserve.

Uncle Owen was still talking. Luke tuned back into the conversation just in time to pick up the words "-the boy and keep him safe for now. I'll find Beru."

"Uncle Owen?" Luke butted in. "What's going on?"

His uncle turned his scowl on the boy then, but his hands were trembling as he patted Luke on the head in a gesture that had always been used to patronise or annoy his nephew. But now it seemed like it was more to reassure Owen that Luke was here, Luke was safe, all was not lost. And that was all Luke needed to know something, the way he often just seemed to know things: his uncle was scared.

Uncle Owen didn't seem quite able to speak, so Old Ben was the one who settled a hand on Luke's slim shoulder, squeezed it, and said, "You'll be staying with me for a few days, Luke, while your uncle sorts out a problem with the farm."

"What?" Luke turned his confused gaze from Ben onto Uncle Owen. "What problem? Where's Aunt Beru?"

The last question had a greater effect on the moisture farmer than the previous ones; his fists clenched, as did his jaw, and that sixth sense Luke had always had told him his uncle was in pain, and afraid. Not for himself, though. For Aunt Beru.

"You need to go with Ben Kenobi," he told his nephew. He turned to the man in question, and gave one of the fiercest glares Luke had ever seen his uncle produce. "You look after him until I come back," he said. It was more warning than instruction. "There's no one else I can trust to, not with the recent attacks on nearly every farm in the vicinity."

"Attacks?" Luke ricocheted between worry - Aunt Beru? - and excitement. Interesting things _never_ happened on Tatooine.

Once again, his uncle ignored him. And Old Ben replied gently, "I will protect him with my life."

"What's. Going. On." Really, he shouldn't have been surprised when he was ignored again.

Uncle Owen addressed him then, but not to answer his question. "Luke," he said gently - uncharacteristically gently for him. "Go and pack your things. You'll need an overnight bag of sorts, and take anything you consider special. Take that old damaged T-16 I know you've been working on if you want to." Luke flushed at the half-accusation, but gaped at his uncle's attitude. "Throw everything in a bag, and be out here in five or ten minutes."

"Alright," Luke said slowly, looking from his uncle to Ben and back again. Something was about to happen, he knew. Something _big_ and _exciting_ but _horrible_ , and he was being sent away out of its path. But he didn't know what it was. "I'll go."

When he came out, the two men were engaged in a hushed but heated argument. Uncle Owen was gesturing wildly with his hands, his face a peculiar shade of purple only Ben Kenobi ever seemed able to elicit from him. Although the hermit looked calm as always, there was something in the way he stood - jaw clenched, spine stiff, tendons taught, Luke _didn't know_ it was just _there_ \- that exuded tension.

He lingered in the doorway, but before he could hear anything, Old Ben looked up and offered him a polite smile, effectively foiling any chances at eavesdropping. "Hello, Luke," he said warmly, pointedly turning away from his uncle. "Are you ready?"

He nodded, mumbled a "Yeah", then turned to Owen and all words his dried in his throat like sand had been used to mop them up.

Something was telling him that these next few things he said would be important.

Very important.

He didn't know why; he just knew it.

But he didn't know what to say.

Finally, he settled on a falsely cheery smile. "See you soon, Uncle Owen." His uncle watched, and it hit Luke just how much sadness was held in those eyes. He didn't think he'd ever seen his uncle display an emotion that was quite so. . . _tender_.

Then the look was gone, and Owen too made a half-hearted attempt at a grin. "See you soon, Luke." Silence fell, as his uncle stared at him for a brief moment, then glanced at Old Ben, then back. He swallowed several times, looked at Ben again, and then he murmured, "May the Force be with you."

Luke blinked. He had no idea what these words might mean, nor what this mysterious "Force" was, but as Ben straightened suddenly, and Luke saw his uncle's expression, he knew they must have been important. But somehow taboo. But still used, when the situation called for it.

He didn't know.

So he just smiled, and nodded, and followed Ben when he left the homestead.

* * *

" _Now_ will you tell me what's going on?" Luke accosted Ben the moment they'd stepped over the threshold of his home.

Old Ben sighed, and passed a hand in front of his face, before taking a seat on the bench against the wall of the home. Luke sat down next to him, his stare expectant.

"There was a raid," he said carefully - Ben seemed to say everything carefully, "by the Tuskens. Your aunt was taken."

The desert sands outside still burned, the twin suns still blazed, and any stray water was still evaporated within moments of being exposed to the arid climate, but Luke was suddenly very, very cold.

"Aunt Beru?" he asked, his throat dry. "Taken? Like-" He swallowed. "Like Grandmother?" His aunt and uncle had told him the story of what had happened to Shmi Skywalker - he was never sure whether it was to assuage his curiosity of why he seemed to be the only Skywalker left alive, or as a cautionary tale to keep him safe and far away from the Sand People.

Obi-Wan's face became even graver, if that was possible. "Yes. Your uncle is assembling a party of moisture farmers to go and rescue her, but-"

"That was how Cliegg Lars lost his leg," Luke finished monotonously. "Only six people came back when they went to rescue Grandmother. And when someone did get her back, she died anyway." He swallowed again. "Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru are going to die as well, aren't they?"

Ben didn't answer, but Luke could feel the truth of the words like he knew the truth of the suns' rise. He opened his mouth to say something, then shut it again. There was nothing to say.

"I'm sorry, Luke."

He thought about the weight of the last moment he'd had with Owen, of his _"See you soon,"_ and then his uncle's _"May the Force be with you."_ He wondered if he would ever know would that meant - if he should ask Ben.

He would, he decided. But not now.

Luke understood his uncle's desperate attempts to save the woman he loved from a fate he'd already seen a loved one suffer. He understood why he would risk ultimately impossible odds to attempt it. But a part of him still cried out at the idea of the only father figure he'd ever known leaving him, willingly or not. _Come back_ , a part of him whispered. _I need you._

They sat in silence for what might have been minutes, might have been hours, might have been days. But the silence was broken eventually by an intangible disturbance that ran through Luke, making him shudder. He didn't know what it was; a part of him didn't _want_ to know.

Maybe fifteen minutes passed in silence again, before Ben shifted positions and brought out what looked like an ancient, out-of-date (so-far-out-of-date-it-was-probably-an-antique-during-the-Clone-Wars) comlink and contacted someone. Despite himself, Luke's curiosity led to him listening in.

A small blue projection of a man who looked like he might be quite tall in real life, with short dark hair and fine but pragmatic clothes, appeared. "Obi-Wan," he greeted. "Has it. . ." there was a definitive, and slightly awkward pause, but the man seemed good with words and continued, "happened?"

Old Ben - _Obi-Wan?_ \- nodded, his lips tight. "They're dead," he confirmed, and Luke's stomach plummeted. So it was done. That made sense; it _felt_ true at least. _Aunt Beru, Uncle Owen. . ._

Ben met his gaze for a moment, and tried for a comforting smile, but it did nothing to stop the growing feeling of nausea in Luke's stomach. The hermit turned his attention back to the comlink. "We need somewhere to go, someplace to stay, Bail," he informed the man. "He can't stay on Tatooine any longer."

"I agree." Bail nodded, and now Luke knew the name, he realised there was something familiar about the man - like he'd seen him on the holonet, or something. "Bring him to Alderaan, Obi-Wan, and we can let _him_ choose - he has had much of a choice, otherwise. There are places he can stay here, or he could-"

"That option I would prefer remain closed until he's older," Ben interrupted. His eyes flicked up to Luke, then down again. "But I will see you soon, old friend."

"And I you," the man agreed. His voice was warm. "Until then, may the Force be with you." Luke stiffened when he heard that expression.

"May the Force be with you," Old Ben murmured, then switched off the comlink. The shimmering projection disappeared. "Luke," he said into the following silence. "Would you like to come to Alderaan with me?"

The way that man had been talking - like everyone was planning Luke's fate for him - rang in his mind. "Do I have a choice?"

Ben didn't show outward signs of tension, but Luke somehow knew he'd made him uncomfortable. "Yes, of course," he said. "You may stay here, renovate the farm, become a moisture farmer like your uncle. You could stay with one of your friends until you can submit your application to the Imperial Academy and attend there next season. Or you can come with me to Alderaan, and Bail and I can tell you about your father and mother."

Luke's eyes blew wide. "You knew my parents?"

"I fought with your father during the Clone Wars," came the reply. "I knew him better than most."

Luke scoffed. "My father didn't fight in the wars - he was a navigator on a spice freighter."

"That's what your uncle told you," Ben corrected. "He didn't hold with your father's ideals, thought he should've stayed home and," the next few words sounded the slightest bit bitter, "not gotten involved." He sighed. "Your father was a Jedi Knight - as I was myself. He was the best star pilot in the galaxy. A cunning warrior. . ." He paused for a moment, sounding the slightest bit wistful as he said, "and a good friend."

Luke's hand dropped into his lap, and he stared down at them, feeling oddly like he was betraying his aunt and uncle as he said, "I wish I'd known him."

"That reminds me," Ben said, standing up and moving to open a chest he kept in the corner. "I have something for you."

"What is it?" Luke asked.

* * *

Alderaan was cold.

He had other thoughts about the place as well - there were so many people, the buildings were so pretty, there were so many plants, there was so much water - but it ultimately kept returning to that: _it was so cold_.

The sun was out and shining, but even standing in the patches of sunlight that fell through the colourful canopy of arched buildings and pretty parasols it was cold. He felt like he was trailing sand all over the floor in his sun-bleached desert robes that were fit for working on a moisture farm under the harsh glare of two judgemental suns, but most decidedly _not_ fit for walking through the chilly halls of the palace above Aldera City.

Ben seemed to pick up on his discomfort, and shot him a sympathetic smile, although the old hermit had breathed a sigh of relief when they'd stepped off the freighter that had brought them here.

They finally came to a halt outside a door, and the guard escorting them knocked on the wood before hearing a muffled, "Come in," and they entered.

They were in what looked to be the personal quarters of someone or other, with the central room they were currently standing in branching off into several others. Through one door Luke caught a glimpse of a large bed; through another the view of the mountains from above and a balcony that appeared to wrap round the outside of the palace.

In the middle of the room - which seemed to act as a sort of parlour, or living room - was a small coffee table surrounded by sofas and armchairs. Three humans sat around the table: the man Ben had contacted earlier - Bail - a woman with her dark hair done in an elaborate style, and a girl about Luke's age with pale skin and hair braided across the crown of her head.

Bail stood and greeted Ben like an old friend - which, if everything the hermit had told Luke on the way here was true, he was. Luke unconsciously shrank back behind him as the girl's eyes went to him and fixed there.

"You must be Luke," Bail said. He was smiling at him, but Luke got the sense he was. . . tense. Worried. Slightly uneasy. "I'm Bail Organa, this is my wife Breha, and my daughter Leia." Breha - _the Queen of Alderaan_ , Luke suddenly remembered; _that_ was why Bail had looked so familiar, they were _all over_ the holonet - smiled welcomingly at him. Leia nodded in acknowledgement.

"We're very sorry to hear about your loss," Breha told him, "and we hope to help you in any way you can. We can provide a place for you to live here on Alderaan, if you want to, and if not then just tell us how we can help, and we'll do everything in our power to do so."

Luke felt himself start to relax. The Organas were clearly kind - _good_ \- people, and he _knew_ that Breha was as sincere as she could get when she'd said her piece. He took a deep breath, and looked from the queen, to Bail, to Leia, then to Ben. He didn't know what to say. He opened his mouth, just to say _something_ , and-

"I think Luke should make his decision another day, when he's been fully rested," Ben said. His eyes were calm as his met Luke's gaze. "It's been a long, exhausting day - perhaps you should wait until you've come to terms with everything that's happened to you before making any life-changing decisions."

Luke nodded mutely. Bail said, "We've prepared rooms for you to stay here for tonight, or as long as you wish. Leia," he turned to his daughter, "could you show Luke to his room? Breha and I want to speak with General Kenobi for a moment."

 _General Kenobi?_ Luke wondered, but he didn't have time to ponder it further as he followed the princess out the room.

They walked in silence for a little bit, Luke too busy taking in the design of the palace, and the sheer differences between this place and everything he'd ever known, and Leia leaving him to it. After a while, she broke the silence with, "I'm sorry for your loss."

Tears pricked his eyes at the thought of it, and he had the bizarre urge to laugh - he could just imagine Uncle Owen telling him about how tears were a waste of precious water. "It wasn't your fault. It wasn't anybody's fault."

"Even so." They walked for a few paces, then she broke the silence again with, "I'm Leia."

He smiled at her, and meant it. "I'm Luke."

"And these," she said as they stopped outside a door, a smirk quirking the corners of her mouth, "are your rooms." She threw the doors open, and stepped aside to let him pass.

The rooms were beautiful, but by he ignored them, making a beeline for the balcony doors at the other end. He stepped out onto the terrace; the view took his breath away.

Mountains and skies and grey clouds and buildings and green hills and trees and people so many people-

He sucked in a gasp when something cold and wet hit his back.

"What's wrong?" Leia had come out, and joined him at the balcony rail. He jumped as another droplet hit him. "Oh," she laughed. "It's rain."

"Rain," he repeated. He knew what it was, of course - it was supposed to be a fairly common phenomenon on other planets. But living on Tatooine, it had never really hit him until now - rain was cold and wet and precious water and _real_.

He cupped his hands and tilted them to the sky. Droplets fell into them, slowly, then with more abundance as the heavens opened and he was quickly drenched. He laughed. Leia laughed with him.

She seemed familiar, he mused. Like he'd met her before - like she'd been an important part of his life before - but he couldn't remember her. He wondered at it.

They stayed out on the balcony together until the rainstorm passed several hours later, just talking and laughing and wondering. Thus a beautiful friendship was born.

Even if they both caught a cold the following day.


	3. Meeting 1

.

 _Meeting 1_

 _0 BBY_

"Aren't you a little short to be a stormtrooper?" said the princess with all the regal disdain she could muster, despite the fact she lay on a hard cot against the wall of a prison cell.

Luke made a sound that was half laugh and half scoff, and shrugged off the helmet of the stolen uniform. "Nice to see you too," he drawled, and watched as Leia's expression shifted from a sneer to shock.

" _Luke?_ What are you doing here?"

"Rescuing you, of course," he quipped in response, then elaborated: "We were visiting Ben's home on Tatooine; you know that. We found the droids you sent down to us."

"And you _didn't take them to Alderaan?_ "

"We did," Luke added quickly, "but we dropped them off there. Artoo's on his way to- the Rebel Base," he caught himself; glancing up, he could make out the silhouette of a camera in the corner of the cell, "as we speak." He drew his blaster and shot the camera square on. It shattered with a hiss. "Let's go."

Leia's voice was forcibly neutral as she said, "Alderaan is-"

"I know." He looked at her, her grief reflected in his eyes, but they needed to go. Now.

Blaster fire greeted them when they ran down the corridor again, and the smuggler and the Wookiee Luke had hired to get them on here were running back towards them, shooting haphazardly over their shoulders as they went. "Can't get out that way," Han said, rather unnecessarily.

Leia's voice was scornful. "Looks like you managed to cut off our only escape route."

Han froze at that, and levelled the princess with a glare worthy of the twin suns of Tatooine. "Maybe you'd like it back in your cell, _Your Highness_." They all started as blaster fire collided with the wall above their heads, and simultaneously scurried backwards.

 _Who's this?_ Leia's voice drifted over the mental communication between them. Luke carefully dropped a part of his shields down to accommodate her, hoping Darth Vader wouldn't notice his Force-signature even as the man's own (oddly familiar) presence in the Force made him shudder.

 _Smuggler who got me and Ben from Tatooine to Alderaan to here._

 _You paid him to fly you_ here _, Luke?_ He could feel her incredulity, even as they dodged another round of blaster bolts. _You used to serve as an ensign of Captain Antilles's ship! You couldn't commandeer a vessel that didn't belong to a criminal?_

 _Vader ordered that the palace be put on lockdown - in case anyone got any stupid ideas of rescuing you. No royal ships were allowed to leave the surface._

Luke felt her anger, but then he had bigger things to worry about. It was a relief to haul his shields back up, and the cold splash of darkness that was Vader disappeared.

"Threepio, Threepio!" he practically shouted into the comlink. "Are there any other ways out of the cell bay? We've been cut off!" More fire, and Luke gladly surrendered his blaster to Leia; her aim was much better than his. She resumed shooting.

 _"All systems have been alerted to your presence, sir. The main entrance seems to be the only way in or out. All other information on your level is restricted."_

Luke swore in Huttese and Leia, no doubt recognising the curse from that time she'd asked him what he was saying when he reverted into that language, immediately understood the predicament they were in. "You didn't have a plan for getting out?"

Han glowered at her again. "He's the brains, sweetheart!"

She sighed with what sounded like resignation at that (Luke didn't know whether or not to take offence), muttered something about "Skywalkers," and took her blaster off the stormtroopers long enough to blast a hole in the grate at their feet. Han jumped, and Chewbacca howled.

"What the hell are you _doing_?"

"Somebody has to save our skins!" She shifted positions, and dodged a blaster bolt as it singed the hem of her dress. "Into the garbage, flyboy!" She tossed Luke her blaster, and jumped herself.

Luke's heart was racing, his breathing fast and furious; he was surprised he hadn't had an asthma attack yet. Once they were out of the line of fire he'd try to steady his lungs.

He was vaguely aware of Han shouting at Chewie to follow Leia - "I don't care what you smell!" - but he was too focused on firing the blaster and keeping his breaths long and deep to pay proper attention. After a moment, the Wookiee's massive form had disappeared down the grate, and Han quickly followed. Firing one more bolt, Luke did the same.

* * *

It was with immense relief, crushing terror and a lingering stench of garbage that they escaped from the trash compactor a little while later. The subsequent chase through the halls of the Death Star could be described as harrowing, breathless, and terrifying, amongst other adjectives, but nothing of consequence occurred until they reached the hangar bay in which _The Millennium Falcon_ was still being kept.

"You came in _that_ thing?" Leia whispered to Luke when she first saw it. He nodded distractedly, and she threw a glance at Han as she remarked, "You're braver than I thought."

Again, Luke didn't know whether or not to be insulted. Leia seemed to have a way like that.

"Yeah, well, let's hope the old man got the tractor beam outta commission," Han said, eyeing his precious ship from across the hangar. "And that the Imps haven't taken her apart for scrap."

"Yeah, but how are we gonna get to her with all the troopers-" Luke stopped when, even as he spoke, most of the stormtroopers ran to the other side of the bay. He didn't question it. "Now's our chance, go!"

They ran out from their spot and sprinted for the _Falcon_. Leia and Han were already at the landing ramp when the clash of lightsabers made Luke stop and whirl. He gasped, his limbs freezing up, his mind going blank save for one thing:

" _Ben?_ "

Through the door into the other corridor - the one the stormtroopers were running to - he could still the Ben's robed figure locked in a lightsaber duel, his blue weapon twirling and slashing, with a large, masked man Luke would know anywhere. The holonet featured him often enough, even if the stories weren't to be believed.

 _Vader_.

The man's presence was gargantuan, a behemoth; it seemed to swell with fury and hatred as the bloody light from his lightsaber tinged Ben's face red. And as Luke watched, Ben glanced back at him, before seeming to come to a decision. He lifted his lightsaber from its defensive position but made no move to attack his opponent. He just stood there.

There was an arc of crimson light as Vader sheared through his body like it was made of flimsi. Luke wasn't entirely in control of his mouth as he screamed, " _NO!"_ It was an instinctual thing to lift his blaster - which he belatedly realised was still in his hand - to shoot the stormtroopers that turned to spot him. He was vaguely aware of Han and Leia screaming at him to " _Come on!_ " but he ignored them.

Ben, Ben, _Ben_ -

The blaster bolts fired off, bang, bang, bang, _bang_ -

Vader paid him no attention at first, stamping on the remnants of Ben's robes as if to determine that he was well and truly gone. Then, after satisfying his curiosity, Vader's mask tilted up to appraise him.

That dark presence seemed to freeze in its place. Vader took a step towards him, but Luke distantly heard Han shout, "Blast the door, kid!" so he did, and it abruptly closed on the Sith Lord.

The stormtroopers kept shooting, but Luke was already running, and then he was on the _Falcon_ , and then he was gone.

* * *

Obi-Wan was here.

He could feel his presence, knew it like he knew the mechanics of his suit, and knew one thing for certain: his old master would die today.

He deserved no less for all his crimes.

Vader let the Force guide him, and when it told him to stand in a corridor just off the hangar bay where the poor excuse for a ship was being held, he obeyed. It wasn't long before he felt that familiar presence grow closer and closer until his old master, weathered and beaten and wrinkled by the last two decades, appeared at the end of the hall.

(There was another presence here, dearly familiar, heavily shielded, but he didn't need to think about that right now, it was just a distraction.)

"I've been waiting for you, Obi-Wan," he informed the Jedi as he approached. "You should not have come back." Lifting his lightsaber, he turned it on, and the scarlet blade shot out the end. He could honestly say he'd never quite gotten used to the difference in colour to his old sapphire one. "Where is my son?"

Obi-Wan took his time coming closer, and even presumed to toy with him the way he'd toyed with so many politicians during his time as 'the Negotiator'. "Your son? Is he the reason you've hounded the Rebels so desperately all these years?" He clicked his tongue, and Vader had the vague feeling like he was being chastised. "I suppose it would be."

"Where. Is. He?"

"Safe," the old man dismissed, "from the Emperor, from you. Safe, and far, far away."

His anger reared its ugly head. " _Tell me where he is_." He lunged forward, his lightsaber sweeping forwards in an aggressive attack, but Kenobi was quick to counter it, and the blade skittered off his own harmlessly. He swung again, only to be greeted with the same outcome.

Obi-Wan thrust his lightsaber forward, but Vader parried, and slashed while his master was off balance. The Jedi stumbled, and backed off a few steps.

"Now, you finally see. When I left you I was but the learner. Now I am the master." He came at him again, and the crash of lightsabers echoed round the corridor and into the hangar beyond as he again hissed, " _Where is my son?_ "

"Only a master of evil, Darth," Obi-Wan said, almost bitterly, and perhaps it was the use of his Sith name that incurred his wrath, perhaps it was his old master's continued reticence, but there was a roaring in his ears. He didn't think - he _couldn't_ think - and then Obi-Wan had raised his lightsaber out of his defensive position, and his own bloody one was swooping round for the kill, and there was a boy's voice in the distance screaming _NO_ -

The blue lightsaber clattered to the floor, deactivated. Vader stomped on the brown robe lying limp under it, but there was no body.

His master was dead - no one could have survived that - but he was _gone_.

As was any chance Vader had of getting the location of his son out of him.

He clenched his fists, annoyed with his own lack of control. This was a minor setback. He'd been looking for seventeen years; he could hardly give up now, despite the _polite requests_ from the Emperor to do just that. Sidious had been growing increasingly unsympathetic towards his search - Vader suspected he only allowed it because it led to the Sith lord hunting down Rebels with a fire no other could hope to replicate.

He would find Luke. He had to.

His only regret in killing Obi-Wan was that the man deserved so much worse.

The sound of blaster fire drew him out of his thoughts and he turned, more irritated than angry, to see something that made his breathing stop, before the respirator forced it to start again.

A boy - young man, maybe - of about twenty years of age stood in the hanger bay, dodging fire from the stormtroopers standing between Vader and the ship, and shooting right back at them. Two droids and two figures - one of which was the princess who should be incarcerated on the detention level - were behind him, running up the ramp and into the belly of the ship. But it was the boy who really drew Vader's attention.

Sandy blond hair he remembered well, though it had only been fuzz on a toddler's head when he last saw it. Tanned skin that he definitely hadn't sported before. A short stature Vader had once caught himself hoping he'd grow out of, before resigning himself to the fact that Luke had inherited Padmé's build.

An expression of absolute anguish twisting his face, and an echoing shout of _NO_.

Vader would recognise his son anywhere.

He took a belated step forwards, but the man in the ship had shouted for the boy to shoot the controls to open the doors, and then they were closing and Vader was separated from his son again by a physical barrier, and a part of him wanted to ignite his lightsaber and _carve_ his way through the door, but he could hear the sounds of the engines starting, and _The Millennium Falcon_ shot out of the hangar and into the galaxy beyond.

The word ringing in his ears was one of panic that the princess had screamed in the moment before the doors closed: _"LUKE!"_

Luke, Luke, _Luke-_

Vader reeled himself in. Luke was gone. Decimating the door that had kept him from stopping his son from leaving would not change that.

He let his heartbeat steady before he marched down the corridor to the command centre. There was still the homing beacon on the ship. He could - and _would_ \- find them again. They would undoubtably head towards wherever the Rebel Base was - the princess having nowhere else to flee now that Alderaan was destroyed - and then he could-

He stopped abruptly. What _could_ he do then? He was hardly going to blow up the Rebel Base with his son inside it - he would need to extract him somehow - keep him safe from harm- He would meditate on it.

He had a while before the Death Star was able to follow _The Millennium Falcon_ into hyperspace. He was sure he would come up with a solution before then.

In the meantime, he was going to check the security recordings for exactly _how_ they'd managed to spring the princess from her cell.

(Or whether they gave him any insight into what his now-nineteen-year-old son was like.)

And as he did, one thing haunted his mind.

Obi-Wan's last lie: _Safe, and far, far away_.


	4. Luke and Leia Talk

.

 _Luke and Leia Talk To Each Other_

 _0 BBY_

There was a flurry of shock and relief from the Rebel leaders when they landed safely on Yavin 4. Leia had transmitted the clearance codes a few moments before, and it seemed like half of Rebel Command had stormed out to greet the last surviving member of House Organa. After a flurry of motion in which Leia ruthlessly exploited her own ability to compartmentalise, she explained the situation, and how Luke and Obi-Wan had launched the rescue operation. Mon Mothma assured her and Luke that Artoo had safely arrived at the Rebel Base, and Leia let go of a tension she hadn't even realised she had.

They had the Death Star plans. She and Luke were off that wretched space station. They were safe, for now - they'd discussed the possibility that they were being tracked whilst in hyperspace, and sent ahead warnings to evacuate accordingly. Even now, Rebels were moving things into transports, but she had a moment of time before it was necessary to leave.

Apparently she wasn't doing as good a job at pretending she was fine as she'd have liked, though, because she saw General Rieekan take Luke aside briefly for a quick conversation, and then the boy was taking her hand and leading her away from the stress and flurry of Rebel leadership.

"To start with, I, and General Rieekan, am in no way suggesting that you can't handle it, Leia," he began as they walked. "But you've had a stressful past few days, and it's best for both your physical and mental health to get you looked over by a doctor, and then rest for a bit."

"What about you?" she countered, not directly disagreeing with him. _How are you holding up about Ben?_ He'd been a wreck on the _Falcon_.

 _I'll survive_ , he replied, but she could feel the unparalleled anguish radiating off him. He always felt everything so keenly - it had been one of the more disconcerting things about Obi-Wan teaching them to communicate like this. "I'm not the one who's been tortured," he said aloud, and Leia couldn't suppress a shudder at the memory that sprung up at his words. She shielded before he could glimpse it.

The doctor that looked her over was quick but thorough, and when Leia was sent away with some prescribed painkillers but an otherwise clean bill of health, she felt better. Luke made to leave once he'd walked her to her room, but she quietly asked him to stay and he obliged.

"How are the rest of Red Squadron?" she asked, lying on her bed, staring up at the ceiling. She didn't really need to know - she'd only been away a few days, and Luke probably knew less than she did considering his trip with Ben to Tatooine had been longer than that - but she needed someone to talk, to stop her from dwelling on her own thoughts.

Luke lit up; she knew he genuinely loved his compatriots like brothers, especially Biggs, who he'd known growing up on Tatooine before his aunt and uncle's deaths. "Last I checked, good. Wedge tricked Biggs into betting half his ration bars on an old podracing video we dug up on the holonet. Biggs learned the next day that Wedge had watched it beforehand, so he knew what the outcome was, and now there's an ongoing feud for who gets the ration bars."

Leia snorted. "They taste like cardboard anyway."

"That's what I said!" Luke chuckled. "It's been very funny to watch, though."

"I can imagine." Silence fell for a moment, and Leia felt more than heard Luke shift in his seat, something to say rise in his throat then die down again. "What is it?" When he didn't reply, she tried again. _What is it?_

"Nothing," he said out loud, a little too quickly to be entirely credible. She turned her head, eyes narrowed. He caught her gaze, and flung his arms up in a defensive position. "It's nothing!"

"You're hiding something." It was half accusation, half observation. He flinched. "Luke?" He remained silent. "Are you okay? Is it bad?"

" _No_ ," he said suddenly, strangely emphatic about it. "No," he said again hurriedly. "It's not bad at all. It's just. . . I didn't want to dredge up the past now, of all times. Not after everything that's happened."

"We might all be blown to smithereens within the next few days because a massive, planet-destroying space station may or may not have tracked us here," she drawled. "If not, _I_ might die via execution, and _you_ might die going up against that thing in your X-wing." She shrugged. "Maybe now's not the time. But there's a high possibility that there won't _be_ any more time."

Luke swallowed, then murmured something she didn't catch. "What was that?"

 _We're twins_ , he repeated over their Force bond instead. The words didn't compute for a moment, then her eyes blew wide. "Bail- Um, your father told me before Ben and I left Alderaan for the Death Star. He just felt that I ought to know. It was one of the last things he ever said-" he stopped abruptly, then stared at the carpet. Leia had no idea what was wrong. After a moment he looked up again and finished, "To me." . "That explains

"Twins?" she asked. " _Twins?_ " He nodded. "As in, you're my biological, birth brother with whom I shared the womb?" He nodded again. "That explains a lot, actually."

"That's what I thought," he added eagerly. "It just. . . it makes so much more sense now."

The weight of Alderaan still crushed her shoulders, the mourning for her parents and her people still as potent as ever, but something eased in her chest. She was not alone.

She had a. . . brother.

"Did my father say why we were separated?" she asked calmly. Inwardly, she was shocked she was so calm about this, but she'd gone through such a rollercoaster week, what was one more shock?

"I assume it was to protect us," her twin said. "But other than that, I don't know. Ben offered some vague explanation whilst on the _Falcon_ , but he didn't want to say too much in front of Han, so he basically said something about Force sensitivity and being detected. _Hiding_. It why neither of us were ever trained before we met, because it was too dangerous if the Emperor or Vader detected our power. But when there didn't seem to be an option but let us interact. . ."

He shrugged, though she felt the twinge of pain that went through him. "I guess that when they had no choice but to let us meet-" she could practically _hear_ the bristle in those words "-they decided that the need for being trained to shield overcame the need to stay hidden. And since _this_ ," he said the word both out loud and via their Force bond, "seemed hell-bent on existing, Ben just taught us how to use it."

She nodded, but she shared her brother's bitterness. They were twins. They deserved to have known, though she was sure that her father had had decent reason for it.

"Is-" Luke began, then swallowed. "Is Captain Antilles - Raymus-"

"Dead." Somehow, when she said it flatly, it seemed to mean more. Leia hated Vader even more when she thought of all her colleagues, all her _friends_ , either shot down like cannon fodder or killed once escorted on board the Death Star. "Everyone on the _Tantive IV_ is."

Luke turned his face away for a moment. She knew why. In the early days of his stay on Alderaan he'd served as an ensign on board the Alderaanian flagship, before joining the ranks of the Rebellion as a pilot, and Captain Antilles had been a mentor of sorts to him. "I see."

She opened her mouth to say something - what, she didn't know - when there was a knock at the door. Luke barely glanced up as he opened it with the Force, and Han stepped inside, giving them all a strange look as he stared back the way he'd come. Leia hid a smile; it seemed like Luke was having fun messing with the smuggler's disbelief in the "hokey religion" and "mystical energy field".

Han seemed to pick up on the fact he was being made fun of, and scowled. "Kid, Your Highnessness," he drawled. "Apparently you're wanted for the briefing of all the pilots suicidal enough to plan on going up against that death machine." He jerked his chin to the left, like the Death Star would come barrelling through the walls at any second. He looked from Luke to Leia, eyes narrowed in suspicion.

"Tell Rebel Command we'll be there," the Princess said coolly.

* * *

Luke listened with rapt attention to General Dodonna explain the weakness they'd found in the structure of the Death Star. A part of him agreed with Gold Leader when he raised the question of "What good are snub fighters going to be against _that_?" but it was also somehow incredibly satisfying to see classic Imperial arrogance set to (literally) blow their schemes into a million smithereens.

"Only a precise hit will set off a chain reaction. The shaft is ray-shielded, so you'll have to use proton torpedoes."

Next to Luke, Wedge piped up, "That's impossible. Even for a computer."

"But it's not impossible," Luke murmured to his colleague, before he could stop himself. "When I was a kid my uncle taught me to use a laser rifle; I'd bulls-eye womprats in my T-16 all the time. They're not much bigger than two metres."

Wedge gave him that look he sometimes had, like he wasn't sure if Luke was pulling his leg, mad, or just very unusual.

"Man your ships!" General Dodonna continued. "And may the Force be with you." Luke shivered at the words.

Leia caught up to him in the hangar, shortly after he heard her little tirade at Han for just leaving them behind. He didn't bother going over to back her up; he'd tried to pursue that line of argument with the smuggler, and been promptly shut down. To add insult to injury, Han had offered Luke a place with him and Chewie in his crew, and though he knew the Corellian had meant well, he'd just walked away without comment.

He was a Rebel. This was where his loyalties lay.

"Be careful, Luke," Leia said now, and he opened his mouth to reply, but she cut him off. "And _don't_ say you're always careful; you've got an unhappy habit of making both the best and worst out of a situation. Don't even try to argue with that." He had to laugh, even if the knowledge of where all this concern was coming from squeezed his own heart like a vice.

"I'll do my best," he promised. "Is that good enough for you?"

She just laughed, and hugged him. "May the Force-"

"No." He cut her off hurriedly. "Don't say that."

She raised an eyebrow at him, and he fidgeted where he stood.

"That- That was the last thing Uncle Owen ever said to me," he explained. "That last thing Bail said before I left Alderaan. The last thing-" He swallowed, the scene flashing in his mind: the control room on the Death Star, Artoo plugged into the monitor, Ben saying _Your destiny lies on a different path than mine_. "The last thing Ben said to me."

"I see." And he knew she did - better than him, in all likelihoods. "Well, good luck."

He smiled at her, and turned when Biggs butted in, "We'll sure need it."

"Have faith," Leia chided. "You're not dead yet."

"You're right," Biggs conceded with a grin. Luke grinned back. "The Empire'll never stop us!"

Leia shook her head in exasperation as he walked over to his own ship, a smile playing about her lips, and Luke climbed into his fighter.

A few minutes later, Red Squadron took off.


	5. Meeting 2

_._

 _Meeting 2_

 _0 BBY_

No matter how many times Luke had stepped into the cockpit of his X-wing, or onto the _Tantive IV_ , or any other ship that he'd ever been on, he would never not catch his breath at that first moment of take off, when he became weightless and he was spitting in gravity's face, and _flying_. It probably had something to do with how he'd yearned to get off Tatooine as a kid, but even once he'd been able to fly wherever he wanted, whenever he wanted, that childish magic to the moment had never quite disappeared.

Despite this, the excitement of the moment was tempered by Luke's first hand knowledge of what the armoured battle station they were flying against could do. Logically, he knew the Death Star's laser wasn't precise enough to hit small, moving targets like his X-wing, but he'd been in enough dogfights for the Rebellion to know that the Empire protected their own, and several squadrons of TIE fighters were likely on standby inside it.

Imperial arrogance might lead to them not being dispatched, but Luke had spent the last seven years listening to stories about Darth Vader, about his ruthlessness, cunning, and supreme prowess in battle strategy and combat. He didn't doubt that this wasn't a man who took chances.

The trees of Yavin 4 turned into green blurs beneath his starfighter, then they were gone altogether, and the dark expanse of space reached out to swallow him up.

* * *

Han glanced down one last time at the Rebel Base before leaving Yavin 4's atmosphere. The Rebels were an organised bunch, he'd give them that, even if most of them were reckless to the point of suicidal, and foolish - that kid along with them.

Chewie howled, and Han scowled at the insistence they go back. He was finding it hard enough to argue that point with himself; he didn't need his co-pilot weighing in as well.

Nevertheless, even as he prepared the jump to hyperspace, he hoped the kid survived.

* * *

Leia watched Luke's X-wing take off, and felt her stomach leave with him. Her friend - her _twin_. She might never see him again.

Shaking off her lingering worries - _of course_ he would be alright - she went to the command centre to watch the diagram showing the imminent approach of the very space station her brother was trying to destroy. There was a crackle over the internal comlink, and a disembodied voice said, " _Standby. Death Star approaching. Estimated time to firing range, fifteen minutes._ "

She suppressed a shiver.

* * *

 _"All wings report in."_

 _"Red Ten, standing by."_

 _"Red Seven, standing by."_

 _"Red Three, standing by."_

"Red Five, standing by," Luke said when his turn came, and checked his targeting computer was on for the fifth time. They couldn't afford to miss this shot.

 _"We're passing through their gravitational field."_

 _"Lock in attack position."_

 _"Hold on tight."_

Luke felt his X-wing shudder as they neared the Death Star. Peering out at the gargantuan battle station Leia had been imprisoned on not long ago, he failed to stifle his gasp. He wasn't the only one surprised; over the comlink, he heard Wedge curse. _"Look at the size of that thing!"_

He couldn't blame him. When they'd approached it on _The Millennium Falcon_ , he'd known it was massive, known it and been awed by it, but his indisputable nerves had lessened the sensation somewhat. Now he knew that not only did he have to infiltrate it, but he had to _blow it up_. . .

Well.

 _"Cut the chatter, Red Two. Accelerate to attack speed."_

Luke followed the orders, and they shot forward. He distantly heard the leader of Gold Squadron chime in, but he was suddenly very aware of his heartbeat in his head, the movement of his X-wing through time and space, and the bright life forms of his compatriots around him. He sucked in a breath as he heard, _"Remember, Luke: use the Force."_

"Ben?" It took him a moment to realise he'd said it out loud.

 _"You alright, Luke?"_ Biggs asked, dispensing with the call signs completely.

"Fine," he said hastily. "It's nothing." He could just imagine his friend's nod of affirmation, then no more questions were asked.

 _"Heading for the target shaft now,_ " Gold Leader said.

 _"We're in position. I'm gonna cut across the axis and try and draw their fire,"_ Red Leader responded, and Luke joined the rest of Red Squadron as they followed, dodging lasers ranging up at them from the surface. Red Eleven was soon hit; Luke gritted his teeth as over the comlink he heard the crash of fire, the gasp of fear from the pilot, then the _boom_ that he wouldn't have heard if communication had been left to the vacuum of space.

* * *

 _"Heavy fire!"_

 _"I see it."_

 _"Stay low!"_

Leia's heart jumped into her throat as she heard the last sounds of a dead pilot come out of the internal comlink. She felt Threepio look at her with his closest approximation of concern as she swallowed.

Somehow, somewhere deep down inside her, she _felt_ the loss, like a bright, flickering candle that had all of a sudden been blown out.

* * *

"This is Red Five, I'm going in," Luke warned, then took a steep nosedive and skimmed the surface of the Death Star. In his peripheral vision, he saw the blasters swivel to face him, saw the green bolts fly towards him even as he swerved to avoid them. His gaze was fixed on the yellow shots he was firing himself, and the white sparks that flew up when they came in contact with something.

 _"Luke! Pull up!"_ came Biggs's frantic voice, and he followed his friend's advice. Half a second later a staggering shot soared past exactly where he'd been moments before.

 _"Are you alright?"_

"I got a little cooked but I'm okay," Luke gasped. His hands were shaking on the controls, he noted absently. Was this due to fear? Or adrenaline? He shook his head; now wasn't the time to speculate.

He gunned the engine again, and curved up to join the bulk of the attack.

* * *

Vader could feel the presence he'd so desperately sought darting around somewhere above him. So Luke had been on Yavin, as he'd feared, he mused. But not anymore - now he was somewhere nearby, somewhere close. Good - that meant he wouldn't be caught in it when the battle station fired on the moon.

Had the Rebels analysed the Death Star plans? he wondered. Had they found that weakness they'd so desperately sought? Or was his son's fleeting presence - or, indeed, the myriad of fleeting presences he could feel above him - a last ditch attempt on the Rebellion's part at an evacuation?

But no, a quick probe of Yavin 4 itself revealed that there were still very many sentient life forms on land. They had not started a full scale evacuation yet. They must have seen the Death Star coming on their charts, yet they didn't flee. Had they found a weakness after all?

And what were those presences above him?

It hit him a moment later, and he snarled inside his mask. He didn't need the approaching officer's report to tell him, but he listened anyway: "We count thirty Rebel ships, Lord Vader, but they are so small they are evading our turbo lasers."

"We'll have to destroy them ship to ship," he mused aloud, before what that entailed truly caught up to him. His _son_ was one of those fighters - his own son was flying to destroy him, and if all went right, he would be shot down and killed.

No.

He wouldn't allow that to happen.

But there wasn't much choice.

"Get the crews to their fighters," he snapped to the officer, who promptly saluted, and marched off to see it done. If he joined them in the battle in space, if he managed to identify Luke amongst the Rebel pilots, he might be able to keep an eye on him, make sure his ship didn't come to any life-threatening damage. And maybe herd him towards one of the Death Star's hangars as well, get him on the ground for a proper meeting.

 _This will be a day long remembered,_ he thought to himself. _It has seen the end of Obi-Wan Kenobi, will see the end of the Rebel Alliance, and will soon see my son returned to me. All will be right, and as it should be_.

He turned, cape snapping about his shoulders, and strode to the hangar.

* * *

 _Watch yourself, there's a lot of TIE fighters coming from the right side of that deflection tower,"_ Red Leader warned them.

"I'm on it," Luke replied instantly, reaching for the controls to shoot.

 _"I'm going in,"_ Biggs declared. _"Cover me, Porkins."_

 _"I'm right with you, Red Three."_ Luke saw the TIE fighters emerge from behind the tower, and converge their fire on Porkins. His stomach dropped to his heels at the screams of _"Pull up!"_ over the comm, before the static of another destroyed ship filled the silence of space.

 _Luke,_ said a voice in his ear. _Trust your feelings_.

 _Now is not a great time, Ben,_ he thought to himself as he evaded a TIE fighter and nearly collided with a deflection tower.

 _"Watch it, you've got one on your tail,"_ crackled over the link before the sound of yet another lost friend blocked out all noise. Luke sucked in a gasp. His hands were definitely shaking now.

"I'll be right there," Luke promised Biggs as his friend came under fire. He watched the green lines on his targeting computer converge; he pulled the trigger. The TIE fighter exploded in a shower of sparks, and Biggs soared away unharmed.

* * *

Vader ordered his pilots even as he walked. "Several fighters have broken off from the main group. Cover me as I engage them."

* * *

 _"Watch your back, Luke, watch your back!"_

 _"I'm hit but not bad. Artoo, see what you can do with it."_

Leia felt her brother's fear spike to match hers. Her eyes were glued to the screen as she watched him dart and dodge and weave until one of his comrades shot down the threat.

She let out the breath she had been holding, but didn't let out the next one for a while longer as yet another TIE fighter approached Luke.

* * *

 _"Red Five, you're entering a heavy fire zone. Red Five, where are you?"_

"I can't shake him!" Luke shouted, partially in desperacy, partially in frustration. His throat constricted as he frantically threw his X-wing to the side, narrowly missing the green blast shot.

He was so terrified. And he could even tell whether that terror belonged to him or to Leia.

* * *

Fear ran rampant in the Force, with all of the Rebel pilots showing remarkable duress under their strain, Vader had to admit, even as he shot down another one. But his head snapped up when he felt it flare with all the might of a powerful Force user.

It came from the X-wing to his left, he noted, eyes narrowing behind the mask. Yes; that was the one Luke was in. He watched with a morbid fascination as his son dodged an alarmingly accurate shot from the pursuing TIE pilot and flew even closer to the Death Star, until a less skilled pilot would undoubtably crash. He was approaching the trench that ran around the circumference of the battle station, presumable for cover.

One of his engines was smoking, Vader realised. Luke was hit.

He reached for the comlink to command his pilot to cease the pursuit, but before he could give the order, the TIE fighter was blown to pieces by a newcomer into the fray: a dilapidated Corellian freighter.

He knew that ship.

And now the Force was swelling, bunching around his son, and Vader was somewhere between shocked and hysterically proud at Luke's potential-

That was the last thought he could spare before a stray Rebel shot clipped the edge of his fighter and sent him spiralling away.

* * *

Luke made a desperate run for the trench even with the TIE fighter in pursuit. Further turbo lasers shot at him as he descended, but he swerved and somehow they missed him. He felt more than saw the Imperial pilot chasing him come within firing range, and knew that he was about to die.

He accelerated his X-wing further. _If I can just make the shot. . ._

 _Please, just let me make the shot._

The TIE fighter behind him exploded.

 _"Yahoo!"_ came the shout over the comlink, and Luke was so relieved he wanted to cry, but he kept a hold of the controls. _Just a little further. . ._

Han. Han had come back.

 _"You're all clear, kid, now let's blow this thing and go home!"_

Luke had never felt such an intense urge to grin in such an intense situation. The target was approaching rapidly, and he peered through his targeting computer to judge the time he had left.

 _Use the Force, Luke._ Ben was back. And this time, Luke was slightly more inclined to listen. _L_ _et go, Luke. Trust me_.

Luke made a split second decision: he switched off his targeting computer.

Immediately there were cries of alarm - over the comlink and through his link with Leia. But he barked out, "I'm alright!" and shut out everything else.

He could feel the lives that had been lost today, feel the controls in his hands, feel the peace and serenity Ben had always promised the Force brought barrel into him like a charging bantha. He could feel the target in front of him, and he could feel the distance between it and him, and he fired.

The proton torpedoes shot down the shaft.

He pulled up instantly.

The endless expanse of space had never seemed as welcoming as when the Death Star exploded into fire and dust behind him.


	6. Luke and Leia Laugh

.

 _Luke and Leia Laugh At Each Other_

 _3 ABY_

Luke knew that as a former resident of Tatooine, he was a little more biased against the cold than the average citizen of the galaxy. But even Leia had to admit that the temperature on Hoth was well past "unbearably" cold and into "what the kriff are we doing here again?" cold.

Even the tauntaun he was riding seemed to agree with him, and it was _native_ to this planet.

In fact. . . He frowned, shifting his weight slightly so he didn't fall off even as the mount shuddered underneath him. This didn't seem like normal behaviour for the creature - surely they wouldn't be bothered by the snowy landscape. They were _from_ here. . .

It clicked in his mind then: they were a native species, and no doubt knew when the approach of a predator was near, such as that legendary _wampa_ Hobbie had become so fond of telling horror stories about. "What's wrong, girl?" he asked, more to voice his inquiry than because he was actually expecting a reply. Tauntauns were non-sentient creatures, after all. "D'ya smell something?"

He heard the tauntaun's scream a moment after he felt the dim Force presence of a living animal behind him. A large paw, furry, with sharp claws, collided with his face, knocking him from the saddle with all the authority of a hammer blow. Luke's face went numb the moment he hit the snow and felt it seep through his protective gear; through half-closed eyes he saw something red spatter the ground.

The tauntaun screamed again as the wampa laid into it, and opened its throat with one precise strike. Luke clumsily made to roll away, stiff fingers scrabbling in the snow for his lightsaber. It'd become detached from his belt as he fell, but if he could ignite it, it might be something to defend himself with-

He felt more than saw the creature turn its attention on him, and grasped his lightsaber in the nick of time. A hard grip clamped itself around his ankle, and he _rolled_ , his lightsaber lighting up mid strike. The sapphire blade sliced through the wampa's shoulder with a sickening _thunk_. The creature roared, rearing back for a moment, before, newly enraged, it lunged forwards again.

This time he was ready.

He was still sprawled on his backside in the snow, but he was at least facing the right way, and lucid enough that even with his blurred vision, obscured with blood and tears and melted snow, he was able to lunge forward and see the blue glowing stick he was waving decapitate the beast.

He shifted away, shuddering, then looked around. His heart plummeted to his boots, and further. A snowstorm was coming.

Great.

He stabbed his comlink with a finger, but the fall in the snow had smashed it, and water had slipped through the seal to short-circuit what was salvageable. He cursed, and clenched his fists.

He still had the pack, he reassured himself. And the shelter with it. But that wampa must have come from _somewhere_ \- there was no way even it could survive for long out in one of Hoth's unforgiving snowstorms, so there must be a cave of sorts nearby.

And Hobbie's horror tales had never mentioned wampas to be the sort to live in groups. . .

He squinted at the wampa's tracks. The snowstorm was quickly filling them in, but they were there. He could see them trailing off over the horizon, which was currently obscured by the sheets of snow raining down.

Luke shouldered his pack, and kept moving.

It was difficult - there were moments when he'd thought the tracks had disappeared, only to find them reappear a few steps later. He fell into snowdrifts and eddies and had to pull himself out again. He wasn't even sure he was following the _same_ set of tracks by the time they ran out, and with nothing but the stuff he carried, and a dead tauntaun and wampa several miles back, he was left with no choice to continue on.

 _Ten more minutes_ , he vowed. _If I haven't found shelter in ten minutes, I'll stop and set up my own. I'll need the energy for it._

Thankfully, he found a cave in the eighth minute of that countdown, and collapsed inside it gratefully. It was deep, and once he'd gained significant distance from the entryway and found that the snow hadn't been able to blow this far in, it was warm.

(Not Tatooine warm, of course. Not even Alderaan warm. Or compared to Echo Base. But he was too cold and tired to care right now.)

He tried to construct his shelter near the front of the cave, to shut out the majority of stray winds and weather hazards. And other wampas, though he refused to consider that right now.

After raiding his emergency supplies kit, he treated the injury on his face that had long since dried and gone numb, then huddled himself in the blanket he had on hand and struggled to stay warm. And despite all the training and lectures he'd received in his time as an Alderaanian pilot _and_ a member of the Rebellion about how in situations like this he _must not fall asleep_ , he couldn't bring himself to remain awake.

* * *

Her Highnessness had been beside herself with worry when Han first set off. A part of him accepted and preened at the fact that some of it ( _lots of it_ ) had been worry for _him_ , but the part of him that had never quite been able to comprehend the simple fact that Luke and Leia were like siblings was unaccountably jealous.

But even _that_ charming emotion was overshadowed by his own worry for the kid. Luke wasn't exactly known for his ability to stay out of trouble.

Of course, the dangers of his ability to get into trouble were irrelevant at that moment, especially considering he was already in it, especially considering he was _t_ _rapped in a kriffing snowstorm no less._

A part of Han wondered when he'd gotten himself into this mess.

He eventually found Luke's shelter at the base of a cave, and breathed a sigh of relief. His tauntaun had long since frozen to death and he'd made a large part of the trek on foot, and had almost collapsed from relief _himself_ when he saw the cave.

He shoved his way past the flimsy blockade that might hold up against snow, but not a worried (and slightly scared) Han Solo. And it was a good thing he did, because when he finally got to where the kid had set up camp, in a (mysteriously dry of snow) alcove deep in the cave, he found the idiot sleeping. Being a responsible adult who didn't want to see his friend die, he immediately did the most logical thing to do in that situation:

He shook the kid awake.

"Luke!" he hissed, then shouted. "Wake up!"

The kid stirred, groaning a barely audible, "Ben?" and Han was definitely worried now. Apparently Luke had been lucid enough when he'd stumbled upon this cave, as he'd apparently had the sense to eat something and wrap up warm (or as warm as you can get whilst on this hellish planet), but was now beyond all realms of logic and rational thought.

"Kid!" He shook him again, and whilst Luke didn't seem the definition of "conscious" at the moment, at least he wasn't asleep.

"Ben," he said again. Han just sighed, and resigned himself to a long night.

The next morning they were found by Rogue Two, and taken back to Echo Base.

* * *

Leia's heart seemed to have lost half its weight when she caught a glimpse of Luke drifting in the bacta tank, battered and injured and malnourished and frozen nearly to death, but _alive_. And when he came out, and was conscious for the first time in two days, the first thing she did was hug him.

"I'm so glad you're alright!" Her smile faltered as she took in the faint scars on his face, which she had been told would disappear in time, and his calmly relieved expression changed as well. _What is it?_ came the tentative enquiry across their bond.

She just smiled, and shook her head, sending a feeling back instead. Panic, fear, worry that she'd lose the only family member she had left, and the bone-crushing relief from when he and Han had staggered into the Base, very much alive. "It's nothing," she said, just as Han charged in the door, closely followed by Chewie.

"How're you doing, kid? You look alright to me." He stopped in front of her brother, peered at his face, then grinned. "Why, you look strong enough to pull the ears off a Gundark."

"Thanks to you," Luke said quietly, his gratitude evident in his tone.

Han grinned again, even as he very pointedly held up two fingers. "That's _two_ you owe me now, junior." Luke just laughed, and Han turned to Leia. "Well, your Worship, looks like you managed to keep me around a little longer."

She stared at him for a moment. Was he- Was he actually insinuating she'd somehow orchestrated this to prevent him from leaving? Was he joking, or. . .? She shook her head and answered diplomatically, her voice _ever so_ _slightly_ frosty, "I had nothing to do with this. General Rieekan thinks it's dangerous for any transports to leave the system before the energy shield is up."

"That's a nice story, your Highness, but I just think you can't bear to let a gorgeous guy like me outta your sight," Han chimed cheerfully, and she was caught somewhere between spitting in his face and rolling her eyes. She settled for glaring at Luke, whose cough was just a little too well timed to be anything but a laugh.

Chewie seemed to have the same problem, because Han suddenly whirled on his first mate. "Laugh it up, fuzzball," he growled. Then he shifted to put an arm around Leia's shoulders, and Luke wasn't even trying to hide his mirth anymore. "But you didn't see us alone in the south passage." Leia knew something bad was about to be said moments before the dreaded, "She confessed her true feelings for me," was spoken.

Luke raised an eyebrow, physically struggling to contain his laughter. Leia jerked away from the smuggler's touch. "Why - _you_ \- stuck-up - _half-witted -_ scruffy-looking - _nerfherder_."

Her brother snorted again, and Han looked somewhere between mock offended and actually offended. "Who's scruffy looking?" He addressed Luke next, "Must've hit pretty close to the mark to rile her up like that, eh kid?"

"Indeed," her brother replied vaguely, the smile he shot Leia not at all reassuring.

Leia glared at them both, looking from Luke to Han and back again, her fists clenched. There was silence for a moment before Han drawled with an intimacy that suggested he _knew_ how this was going to go, "I suppose this is the part where you kiss Luke in a vain attempt to prove me wrong?"

"Eurgh!" Luke said, in the same breath that she exclaimed, with equal fervour, "Yuck!"

Han looked slightly put out. "Look, I'm sure Luke's not that bad a kisser, princess, and as for you, kid, I thought you had a crush on her!"

Luke mimed vomiting his guts up. This time Leia _did_ roll her eyes at his theatrics. "Luke is my twin brother," she said baldly, and took perhaps a slightly vindictive pleasure in seeing how Han's face evolved from smug, to completely and utterly gobsmacked.

"What?" he sputtered. " _What?_ " He took a deep breath. "And neither of you thought to tell me this?" Chewie roared as well; Leia assumed it was something along the same lines.

"We're the only ones who know," Luke replied, a faint smile still audible in his voice. "You two get to be the third and fourth to find out."

" _How does no one know?_ "

"Separated at birth, raised separately, met under tragic circumstances, the usual holonet soap opera nonsense." Leia waved her hand dismissively. "Luke told me three years ago, and we decided not to tell anyone else until we knew _why_ all this happened."

"That's. . . reasonable," Han admitted, scratching the back of his head. "You realise there's a betting pool running on whether or not you two'll get together, right?"

"Yep," Luke said, at the same time Leia said, "No?" Her brother looked at her. "Dak is especially invested in it," he explained. "He thinks he's keeping it a secret, but he really isn't."

Leia waved her finger about, not sure whether to focus on her brother or Han; right now, Chewie was being the only reasonable one in the room. "I-" Her comlink went off. She huffed, and went to answer it.

After listening to the short message, she frowned, and told her friends, "We're needed by Rebel Command. They think that probe flyboy over here blew up earlier might have been an Imperial one." Luke's already pale face drained of colour, and Han nodded grimly. "It's a good bet the Empire knows we're here."


	7. Meeting 3

.

 _Meeting 3_

 _3 ABY_

There was a commotion between one of the captains and Admiral Ozzel. Listening intently to the way the Force insisted this was destiny, Vader strode over and interrupted.

"You found something?"

"Yes, my lord," the captain - Piett - responded promptly. He played the footage the probe droid had sent in, of what looked like a power generator, with words being said along the frequency. There was too much interference to make out anything useful - indeed, it was almost unintelligible. He knew, logically, that it could be anything, anyone. No one cared enough about the entire Anoat sector to pay any attention to it, let alone _Hoth,_ which was reportedly devoid of any sentient life.

But that was just it: it was meant to be devoid of sentient life. No one in their rational minds would go there willingly - unless they had something to hide. And the Force was _unmistakably_ pointing him in that direction, telling him that was where the Rebels were, _that was where his son was_.

"That's it." His tone brooked no argument, and a part of him worried if he sounded too. . . enthusiastic. Eager. He dismissed it - Sith Lords were not _eager_. "The Rebels are there."

Admiral Ozzel had the nerve to look put out put out and exasperated. "My lord," he began, in a long-suffering tone Obi-Wan had often used when lecturing him about his recklessness and thoughtlessness. Vader wanted to strangle the admiral simply for the inadvertent comparison. Or the patronising voice. "There are so many uncharted settlements. It could be smugglers, it could be-"

"That is the system," he insisted. He had rarely been so certain about anything. Ozzel, wisely, shut up. "And I am sure Skywalker is with them. Set your course for the Hoth system. General Veers." He turned, and was pleased to see the man already standing to attention. "Prepare your men."

Veers saluted, and Vader strode off.

* * *

Hoth emerged into sight through the starboard viewports. It was an unremarkable planet, far enough from its sun that the temperature rarely spiked above freezing, so the surface was as white and grey as Tatooine's was yellow and brown. Vader barely had to stare at it for a few moments before knowing without a doubt that his son was there.

Their bond had been. . . dimmer. . . during the past twenty years, but he knew it was still there, even if Luke didn't, and he'd been chasing it across the galaxy ever since he'd felt it again on the Death Star three years ago. It was how in the seventeen year interim he'd still known the boy was alive and out there somewhere, and, what's more, that his Force potential was growing.

It had been hard enough to keep his master's interest away from his son when he'd been young, he'd been powerful enough then as it was, like a sun going supernova. Now, twenty years later, with the knowledge that that massive potential had only _increased_. . .

He was very, very fortunate that the Emperor hadn't gotten _personally_ involved in the manhunt for Luke Skywalker.

Yet.

He sensed General Veers's presence behind him and turned. "What is it, general?"

"My lord, the fleet has moved out of light speed. We have detected an energy field protecting an area of the sixth planet of the Hoth system. The shield is strong enough to deflect any bombardment."

He narrowed his eyes behind his mask, and tried not to clench his fists, or lash out in any way. Veers was a competent general; Ozzel was the idiot at fault for this blunder.

This blunder that might have cost them the attack.

"The Rebels are alerted to our presence," he said, half to himself, half to General Veers. "Admiral Ozzel came out of light speed too close to the system." At least he'd now have an excuse to get rid of the sycophantic officer - who was currently in the same room as them, and trying to look like he wasn't blatantly eavesdropping on the report with mounting fear.

General Veers looked uncomfortable at what Vader's tone implied. "He- He felt surprise was wiser-"

"He is as clumsy as he is stupid," Vader cut him off with finality. Veers took the hint, and shut up. The Sith Lord had no interest in listening to explanations of excuses for this failure. "General, prepare your troops for a surface attack."

"Yes, my lord."

Once Veers was gone, Vader turned his attention back to the admiral, who was currently quaking in his boots. The man tried to look Vader in the eye, but he was shaking even as he stood to attention.

"You have failed me for the last time, admiral." All the officers on the bridge of the _Executor_ tried and failed not to react when the man's breaths became chokes, then stopped altogether.

Vader turned to the captain. "Captain Piett."

He stood to attention immediately. "Yes, my lord?"

"Make ready to land our troops beyond their energy field, and deploy the fleet, so that nothing gets off the system. You are in command now, _Admiral_ Piett."

He was sure, but didn't care enough to comment on, that Piett's gaze drifted down to Ozzel's prone figure on the floor. But he saluted, and said, "Thank you, Lord Vader."

* * *

Not long after, one of the ensigns on another Star Destroyer reported that the first Rebel ships were coming out of the atmosphere. At the same time, ion cannons on the ground were apparently shooting at the Star Destroyers to get them out of the Rebel ships' flight path, and several dreadnoughts took severe blows and buckled under it. Vader didn't so much as flinch.

The Rebels were in a panic now, he knew; he could sense their anxiety and fear, and also the ripple of triumph as the first transport successfully navigated the maze of hostile ships and jumped to hyperspace without sustaining heavy damage. Vader probed the ship as it went, before he relaxed; it was not his son.

Luke was still on Hoth. He could still get to him in time.

He ordered his shuttle to be made ready, and strode to the hangar bay. He couldn't wait for the main power generator to be destroyed before he set off; that would be too late, leave too many things up in the air for him to be certain of victory. He needed to leave _now_ , the Force was telling him, whilst he still had the chance.

He usually had no time for sentimental or fleeting thoughts. But looking back at the _Executor_ as he descended to the planet below, he couldn't help but notice how it positively dwarfed the sixth planet of the Hoth system, like a massive bug ready to squash it.

* * *

Dak was dead, the several walkers were destroyed, and Rebel Command was getting desperate enough to send out two transports at a time. As much as Luke wanted to keep fighting, he had the funny feeling that Leia would kill him if he did.

Well. If he survived it, she would.

He summoned his lightsaber to his hand, and clipped it to his belt. Then he ran, zigzagging across the snowy plain to avoid being hit by any of the shots the remaining AT-AT was giving out. Corpses already littered the ground, struck down and waiting to be crushed by the machine's massive feet, like his landspeeder had been.

He stopped suddenly when a massive white light soared above his head and collided with the main power generators.

The slew of Huttese cursing that escaped his mouth would have curdled bantha milk.

He would've been blind to miss the large, swooping Imperial ship that came down almost immediately after the explosion, sailing through the now non-existent shields. And he would've been Force-blind to miss the roiling _coldness_ it carried. Everything inside him quailed when he sensed that presence.

Vader was here.

He gritted his teeth. Well _this_ just got a lot more complicated.

* * *

The snowtroopers ran out of the transport in front of him, navigating the mess of fallen snow and miscellaneous machinery that had been caused by the collapse of the underground tunnels. He knew Luke wasn't here, was somewhere out on the snow but approaching them at a rapid pace, but again, he wasn't going to take chances. He could tell that mound of junk, the _Millennium Falcon_ , was still in the base, and if it hadn't left, then his son's friends hadn't left either.

He was sure Luke would be more agreeable to talk to, not to mention more _accepting_ of the truth, if Vader had his friends as well.

"Capture the _Millennium Falcon_ , and set your blasters to stun," he ordered the troopers with him. "Do not harm either Captain Solo, Princess Organa, or the Wookiee Chewbacca. And leave the droids intact." The descriptions of the droids Imperial spies had provided was uncomfortably familiar, but he dismissed the notion. Whether they were the ones he remembered or not - and the Force did like to work in strange ways like that - it was no concern of his. It didn't do to get attached to droids.

The troopers ran ahead, and as he strode through the crudely dug snow corridors he could hear the sounds of blaster fire from the hangar ahead. He stepped into the hangar bay just in time to see the _Falcon_ soar out into the open sky.

The ensuing silence was deafening, his troopers' fear of his wrath a maelstrom in the Force.

* * *

Luke had made it to where his X-wing was waiting, with Artoo in the astromech socket ready and rearing to go, by the time he turned to see the _Falcon_ glide off the ground. A weight lifted off his chest that had hadn't even realised had been there.

His friends were safe.

The good feeling that gave him was mitigated by the sudden wheezing of his breath, and he froze. For a moment, he closed his eyes, and tried to focus on deep breaths. He hadn't had an asthma attack in years - the medical facilities available to him once he'd left Tatooine, and exposure to an environment where he wasn't essentially breathing sand into his lungs day in day out, had left to the problem disappearing as he grew to adulthood, as was known to happen in some cases.

 _The whole, nearly freezing to death thing probably took a toll on my health_ , he thought, slightly bitterly. _And the excitement of today probably didn't help, either._

He jogged through the throng of people remaining on the ground, most of whom were pilots from Rogue Squadron getting ready to leave. Even as he called for Artoo to get ready for take off, Wedge shouted at him, "Let's go, Luke! Meet you at the rendezvous!"

Luke shot him an affirmative smile, trying not to show the struggles he was having with breathing, and when Artoo beeped urgently, he climbed into the cockpit. "We're going!" he defended at the harsh scolding that showed up on the screen. "We're going."

* * *

"Admiral Piett," Vader ordered into the comlink the moment he felt Luke leave the atmosphere. "There is an X-wing approaching the blockade. Try to capture it without damage; if not, then track its hyperspace jump and calculate every possible destination along its last known trajectory."

"Yes, my lord," came the response, and the comlink went dead.


	8. Luke and Leia Separate

.

 _Luke and Leia Separate From Each Other_

 _3 ABY_

Luke swore (again) as he evaded the fifth attempt a TIE fighter made to herd him towards one of the Star Destroyers. He dodged the shot, sent a nervous glance at the statistics on the deflector shield, then dived to the side to evade the Imperial ship.

These guys just didn't give up.

He might have to make several jumps to throw them off his tail.

Artoo twittered a stream of binary in response when he voiced the thought aloud, and he glanced at the screen in time to read its translation. He'd finished the calculations. "Great, let's go!" He gritted his teeth as he had to veer away from the TIE, dangerously close to the range of the _Executor_ 's tractor beam.

 _Not today_.

The stars turned to streaks as they leapt into hyperspace.

* * *

Dagobah was hardly what he'd expected - although, admittedly, he hadn't known what he expected when the ghost of his long dead master and friend had turned up like a mirage in a wet and freezing desert to order him to _Go to Dagobah_ and learn from the Jedi master who'd apparently instructed him.

Yoda wasn't what he'd expected either, as he'd learned to his own detriment.

The thought that the old Jedi was going to train him - _going to train him_ \- left Luke more than a little daunted. He was. . . he was just Luke. Yes, Ben used to go on and on about the marvellous potential of the Force, and how strong it was with him, but he was still Luke, Tatooine farm boy. Luke, Alderaanian pilot. And now he was going to be a _Jedi_.

It felt like all his boyhood dreams coming true, and Leia had always said that when she was in the Senate, she had to be wary of people promising her everything she wanted.

Speaking of Leia, she probably thought he was dead. Well, no; their Force bond let them detect the other's state of existence, but she liked to worry. He should probably tell her he was okay, and check that she and Han and Chewie were in one piece.

His reach was tentative, shy, and he steadfastly ignored the disapproving gaze of the Jedi master who turned to look at him when he did it. _L_ _eia?_

Instantly, a barrage of emotions shot towards him; he squeezed his eyes shut against the onslaught. _Luke!_ his twin practically screamed back at him. _Are you alright? Where are you? Have you managed to reach the rendezvous point? If so, tell them we'll be there as soon as possible, we've just run into a little Imperial trouble-_

 _What?_ He tried not to shout himself. _Leia, what happened? What-_

 _You're not at the rendezvous point,_ she said with a start, cutting him off. _You're too far away to be._ He swallowed, and contemplated how he was going to explain this without her screaming some more. _Luke, where are you?_

 _I- I saw Ben, whilst I was out in the snow on Hoth._ There was a silence, and he felt his sister's mood soften. Before she could open her mouth (or whatever the mental equivalent was) to tell him he'd hallucinated it, he hurried to add, _I'm sure I didn't imagine it - he spoke just now, and I'm not the only one who heard him!_

 _You're with someone? Who? Where are you?_

 _Ben told me to seek out someone who trained him. I think he wants me to be trained as a Jedi_. If he'd been speaking normally, his tone would've gone very soft. _Look - I'm safe and hidden and (I'm pretty sure) in good hands. Don't worry about me. Now_ , he added. If Leia could panic about her twin's whereabouts, so could he. _What did you mean by 'a little Imperial trouble'?_

 _Exactly what I said._

 _'A little' being by your standards, or mine?_

There was a pause, and when she finally spoke again, he heard the echo of humour in her voice. Luke's tendency to understate the severity of a situation was a long running joke in Rogue Squadron. _Yours._

He passed a hand in front of his face. _How many times has the hyperdrive failed?_

 _Twice_ , Leia admitted. _Han's working on it though. He's come up with some pretty good ideas so far._

 _I'll remember that: Leia Organa actually admitted Han Solo was being vaguely intelligent for once._

 _Oh, shut up._ He sensed laughter, then, _You're sure you're alright?_

He sat back. _Absolutely fine._

 _Good._ He relaxed, but stiffened again when there was a spike of panic, and the echo of a scream.

 _Leia!_

 _I'm fine,_ she responded hastily. _Mynock._

 _Mynock?_

 _Han's got it under control. Don't ask._

She was gone before he could say, _I wasn't going to._

* * *

"You really trust this friend of yours?" Leia asked sceptically. She thought Han might be getting a little annoyed of her constant paranoia, but there was something _wrong_ here. Luke would say it might be her untrained Force senses insisting on it, and honestly she wasn't so sure he'd be incorrect, loathe as she was to admit it. _Something_ was out of place.

"No." Han said baldly. "He _is_ my friend."

"I think your definition of _'friendship'_ might be different to mine," she muttered to herself, and although she was fairly certain that the way Han's eyebrows skyrocketed meant he'd heard her, he didn't comment.

* * *

Luke was running through one of those strange exercises Yoda taught him, where he had to stand on his hands and levitate rocks that weighed at least half his own weight each. His entire being was focused on the currents in the Force, and the way they twisted and turned around the rock, lifting it up, and up, and up, and-

He let out a sigh of relief as it landed softly on top of the two other rocks he'd stacked up. After the moment of panic in his X-wing on Hoth, when his asthma made a surprise reappearance, he'd been panicked he wouldn't be up to this, but apparently Yoda had some temporary herbal remedies for breathing problems, and had insisted that this was no excuse not to fulfil his promise.

Turning his attention to the next one, he started again.

This was heavier, and slightly more elliptical than its predecessors; he suspected Yoda had purposely put it in this order so he'd be forced to focus his energy on keeping the tower erect with the Force, even as he multitasked in order to lift the final one. His hands trembled underneath him, but he closed his eyes, and submerged himself deeper-

 _A city - was that really a city? It looked kinda like a mushroom - in the clouds, with ships buzzing about it like the bees in a beehive-_

 _A tunnel with flashing blue lights, roughly triangular in shape, and the sight of two lightsabers - one crimson, one cobalt - colliding with a crash-_

 _A chamber filled with steam and screams and a harsh reddish hue, Leia's distraught face as she stared into what seemed to be a bottomless pit, Chewie's roar of anguish and Threepio's plaintive shouts-_

 _A long, long drop, and air rushing up to meet his face and the sight of the looming form of Darth Vader, high above, then blackness-_

The hard dirt ground jarring his joints as he landed on his back with a thump, the breath knocked out of him, and narrowly rolling to avoided having any misplaced rocks collapse on top of him.

"Control!" he vaguely heard the old Jedi master begin to rant. "You must learn control! Focus!"

He was breathing too heavily to listen. "I saw a city in the clouds," he panted. "I saw- my friends- my _sister_ \- suffering - in pain."

"The future, you saw," Yoda said, most unhelpfully.

 _The future_. Luke was hyperaware of his heartbeat in his ears, in his skull, in his chest and feet and hands as he clenched them. "Will they die?"

Yoda closed his eyes. Luke felt the old master reach out into the Force, doing something infinitely more complex and delicate than he himself could ever hope to do. "Difficult to see. Always in motion, the future is."

 _What sort of an answer is that?_ Luke thought. _It's like he relishes being vague and annoying._ Not that he could fault anyone for being annoying, since Han had told him on more than one occasion that the backseat flying he'd attempted to do on the _Falcon_ the first time they'd met had damn near drove him insane, but if the shoe fit. . .

Han had said that. Who might die soon enough.

As might Leia.

As might Chewie.

As might Threepio (at least, as far as any non-living thing could die.)

He stood up from the ground. "I have to go to them."

"No!" Yoda seemed more aggravated by this than by anything else Luke had done so far. "Your training! You must complete your training!"

"But they'll _die_. I can help them!"

"You may," the Jedi master conceded, but then he met Luke's gaze head on. Luke froze. "If you left now, help them you could," he drew a breath, but Luke seemed to have stopped breathing as he said, "but you would destroy all for which they have fought, and suffered."

Luke was shaking. He was trembling, but from anger or desperation or fear he didn't know. His finger shook violently, too, as he pointed it at his master. "You are _impossible_."

* * *

Leia's foreboding about this entire situation mounted just about as Lando said, "and I've just made a deal that'll keep the Empire off our backs forever."

She was already backing up when the door to the dining room slid open, and they could see who was inside. But she halted when stormtroopers filed out into the corridor, blocking every possible exit, their blasters raised and poised.

Darth Vader's vocoder somehow sounded even more threatening than usual - _now, Your Highness, we will discuss the location of your hidden Rebel Base -_ as he said, "We would be honoured if you would join us for dinner."

* * *

Luke was shouting up for Artoo to run the pre-flight diagnostics when Yoda caught him. "Leaving so soon, young Skywalker?"

Guilt crashed into him all at once - guilt that he was disappointing Ben, guilt that he was breaking his promise to Yoda, guilt that he was even debating this because _his friends needed help_.

"I'm sorry - they're my friends - I've gotta help them! They'll die if I don't!"

"You don't know that," said a familiar voice, and Luke's grip tightened on the ladder at it, but he also turned to see Ben - _Obi-Wan -_ materialise seemingly out of thin air, his visage a faintly glowing blue. "Even Yoda cannot see their fate."

"And that's why I have to help them," he insisted. "Please, Ben, you have to understand!"

Ben sighed, and it hit Luke then just how _ancient_ he looked. Yes, he'd always been "Old Ben", but in the way that meant immortal, not ailing. But he looked exhausted, and run down, and. . . jaded, with life. "Luke, I don't want to lose you to the Emperor the way I lost Vader." Luke could sense more meaning to it, and a question he'd been holding onto for three years bubbled in the back of his mind.

An off chance comment from an old friend that he'd never quite forgotten, suddenly thrown into intense perspective by death and loss and a strange look given to him by a hostile stranger on the biggest space station ever built.

"You won't," he promised. And a part of him knew that it wasn't just bravado, it wasn't just optimism; it was true. He wouldn't fall to the Dark Side. Leia might actually kill him if he did. "And. . . about that. I have a question for you, Ben."

The man's shoulders slumped, like he knew what Luke was going to ask, and he was all the lighter for the truth being out in the open. "What is it?"


	9. Meeting 4

.

 _Meeting 4_

 _3 ABY_

Leia could hear Han screaming even from where she was incarcerated in a cell with Chewie and Threepio, who'd apparently been found in pieces by the Wookiee in a junk pile. The sound ran along her bones, and she shuddered for maybe the hundredth time since she'd stepped inside Cloud City.

What was more, she could feel her brother approaching rapidly. The tension inside her mounted at the thought of him being trapped in here too, even as she felt him tentatively reach out through the Force, wary of Vader in close proximity. She hoped she was shielding effectively enough that the Sith Lord would think it was just a general probe on Luke's part, and not a two-way connection and conversation.

 _Leia? Are you okay? What's wrong?_

 _We came to Cloud City on Bespin to escape Imperials_ , she replied, wincing as a fresh scream burst through from next door. _But the Imperials were already here. Threepio was taken apart, and Chewie and I are in a cell, and Han. . ._ She swallowed. _Vader's_ _torturing him in the next cell over._

The barrage of emotions she felt from Luke was, as always, overwhelming and infinite. Before he managed to reign them in, she detected guilt, fear, sorrow, and a startling amount of hatred - not directed at Vader, surprisingly enough, but at himself. Leia wanted to inquire, but he beat her to it. _Do you know where the Falcon is kept?_

 _Yeah_. She tried to send him an image of where they'd landed it, of the route they'd taken to get in. _Luke, what's wrong? What are you planning?_

 _I'm not planning anything yet_ , he replied. _I need your help._

* * *

Half listening to the detailed descriptions of the routes Leia and the other had taken when being led and then dragged around Cloud City, half piloting his X-wing, Luke flew over Cloud City and spotted the Millennium Falcon, sitting waiting exactly where his sister had described it to be. He took a nosedive and landed next to it, just where he'd expect a greeting party to come out were this a diplomatic mission, and climbed out of the ship.

Artoo beeped a series of inquiring remarks as Luke helped him out of his socket. The boy had no idea what he was saying, having neglected to learn binary, so he could do nothing but stare bemusedly when the astromech immediately went to trundle up the boarding ramp and into the belly of the Falcon.

He shrugged; he trusted Artoo.

He removed his helmet to get a better look at his surroundings. There were none of the stringent security patrols Leia had mentioned from their own journey here, which meant something - or someone - had stopped them from operating. Had forbidden them from operating. He didn't really need to guess who, and the main question was: Why did they want him to land?

The only plausible answer was: This was a trap.

His mind idly drifted back to one of the few times Ben had talked about Anakin Skywalker, after Luke had found out he was a Jedi Knight. _Naturally, we decided the best way forward was to spring the trap,_ he could imagine the old hermit chuckling, his gaze a thousand parsecs away.

It was as good advice as any. He turned to execute it.

And froze.

He had no plan beyond run and shoot, avoiding Imperials and following the mutual link he had with Leia to find his friends, but that didn't matter, because if he'd had a plan at all it would've been dashed to smithereens when the doors opened and an entourage of stormtroopers marched out, blasters levelled on him.

"Drop your weapons and come with us, Skywalker," the leader demanded, lifting his blaster a little higher as he did. Luke tried not to raise his eyebrows at the show of bravado, and instead his hands settled on the hips, where they hovered over his blaster and lightsaber.

He could cooperate, hand over his weapons, and meekly follow them to undoubtably meet with Vader, upon which point he'd be left defenceless during the confrontation. He could fight back, and hope their blasters were set to stun when they managed to shoot him - he couldn't block all of them at once - but then he'd be left in essentially the same position. Or. . .

He looked the leader in the eyes (or, where he imagined the eyes would be) and said with certainty, "I don't need to drop my weapons."

The stormtrooper's posture straightened. "You don't need to drop your weapons."

Luke always felt guilty doing this, taking away someone's free will like this, but. . . "You will escort me to Lord Vader."

The trooper brought his blaster to his side, and repeated, "I will escort you to Lord Vader."

Luke breathed a sigh of relief, and sent an apology to Leia. _I'm afraid you might have to find a way out on your own. . ._

* * *

The stormtroopers escorted him to a dark room filled with steam, and left in a hurry, leaving him in there alone.

He tensed as a hissing noise filled the air, and eyed the floor nervously, where what he recognised as some kind of freezing chamber was situated. Better not fall into that, whatever its doing there for. He shivered, suddenly very cold.

He doubted Vader would kill him - the astronomical Alive Only bounty he'd been carrying for nearly three years now suggested that fairly explicitly. But it had always been easy to ignore how. . . obsessed. . . the Sith Lord was with capturing him when he was safe and far away from it all with the Rebels. Now, knowing what he did, that nagging feeling refused to go away.

He was so wrapped up in his apprehension that he started when he heard that infamous voice intone, "The Force is with you, young Skywalker." Hearing him say his name like that sent a patented Bad Feeling shooting through him. It was the sort of thing Ben would say - would have said. "But you are not a Jedi yet."

Luke nodded at the man curtly. "Vader. What do you want?" He'd rather have everything out in the open right away than continue to ruminate on everything that could go wrong due to that feeling making all his hairs stand on end. The black mask stared at him, seemingly in appraisal, for a moment. The silence stretched on.

"You have been lied to, young one," Vader said finally, his vocoder not entirely able to disguise the sound that was not dissimilar to a sigh accompanying the words.

Ben's answer rang in his ears as he said with conviction, "No, I haven't."

"Yes-"

"I _haven't_." Random, irrational rage flared up in him, and he glared at Vader. "I was told you killed my parents."

The Sith Lord went very still. "That is a lie."

"Is it?" Luke asked bitterly, taking a half-step back. "Didn't you Force-choke my mother to death, as you have so many other people? There's been so many, I'd understand if you didn't remember her." Vader remembered her perfectly well, and Luke knew that - he was gunning for a reaction, some sort of reaction, at this point. He stepped backwards, taking care not to fall into the hole in the floor. "Didn't you kill my father?"

" _No_." The word was said with strange vehemence, and was emphasised by a step forwards. "I didn't."

Luke stepped back again, and ignited his lightsaber with a hiss. "I thought you claimed to have killed Anakin Skywalker?"

"Yes, but-" Vader cut himself off with a growl, flexing his right hand. "Luke, I-"

"Then you have to see - you're contradicting yourself." Keep him talking, keep him talking, keep moving backwards, and round, backwards, and round, lightsaber waving to draw his attention and then-

Vader took a step forwards to close the distance, and dropped into the chamber between them.

There was a roar of outrage. Luke shut down his lightsaber, and ran.

* * *

Lando barged into the room just as Leia got Han to lie down, his eyes fuzzy. But of course the appearance of his friend-turned-traitor had him instantly reinvigorated, and she had to physically hold him back from launching himself at Lando.

"Listen! I haven't got a lot of time!" Lando hissed. "Vader and the Imps arrived just before you did, they took over the city. I had to make a deal with him. Han's being put into carbon freeze and handed over to the bounty hunter Boba Fett, but Leia and Chewbacca will remain here. They have to stay in Cloud City but at least they'll be safe."

"Vader wants us all dead!" Leia spat.

"He doesn't want you at all! He's after some kid called Skywalker."

Everything in Leia chilled at that. She glanced at Han; he was equally distraught. Vader had been hunting him for three years now; it appeared he'd finally caught his prize. "Luke-"

"He's set a trap for him-"

"And we're the bait!" Leia finished, throwing her hands up. _Luke_ , she thought at him. _Luke, you shouldn't have come_. "He's already here!"

Lando shot her a look, but Han paled even further. "How do you-"

"You screwed us over pretty good didn't you," Han growled, climbing to his feet, "buddy."

He launched himself at Lando again, but the businessman's guards restrained him, shoving him off with embarrassing ease. Lando brushed off his front and scowled.

"Look, I've done all I can. I'm sorry I couldn't do more, but I've got my own problems to worry about." He marched out dramatically, the image not at all helped by the sky-blue cloak snapping at his heels.

Leia passed a hand in front of her face. _Oh, Luke_. . .

* * *

Luke didn't leave by the entrance the stormtroopers had shown him in by, sure they would still be waiting there. Instead he ran blindly up the stairs, through what appeared to be a tunnel with blinking lights (he wasn't paying much attention) and came out onto a gantry.

He swallowed as he looked down. That was a long way to fall. . .

The hum of a lightsaber behind him made him tense - apparently Vader had caught up.

"There is nowhere for you left to run, Skywalker."

* * *

The guards came later to escort them to the freezing chamber. Leia tried to struggle at first, before realising how futile it was and walking with all the regality she could muster. She was the princess of a lost planet, but a princess all the same.

The entourage of troopers halted suddenly, and Leia saw Lando exchange a look with that assistant if his. Immediately, all Cloud City personnel drew blasters and levelled them at the troopers.

"Get them away from here," Lando said. He said more, but Leia stopped listening as he undid the cuffs on her hands and she was free, rubbing her wrists to restore the blood flow.

"What are you doing?" spat Han, but let him undo his cuffs as well.

Lando's voice was curiously neutral. "Getting you out of here."

* * *

Luke stepped away from Vader and his infamous crimson lightsaber, though the Sith Lord made no attempt to attack him. He raised his own 'saber, and struck first.

It skittered harmlessly off Vader's blade; another complicated manoeuvre and Luke's hand was on fire.

He screamed with pain even as he watched his weapon tumble out of his grip. Hearing the sound as if from a great distance, detached from the situation, he felt only a vague sense of alarm as the flashing blade tumbled down and down and down and out of sight.

"You are beaten," Vader said, and it might have been Luke's imagination but he thought he felt a twinge of regret through the Force, as if Vader hadn't quite meant to do that. "It is useless to resist."

Luke's only response was to shuffle further away. He'd reached the end of the gantry now; he climbed over the railing and onto the structure beyond it.

"You have been lied to," Vader insisted. "Your father is not dead, Luke. _I_ am your father."

There was silence for a moment. The only sound was the whistling of the wind.

Luke took a deep breath. "I know."

Vader was so surprised by that he took a half step back. "What?" He continued, half-enraged, "Obi-Wan told you the truth?"

"No." Luke spotted then how much the stump of his wrist was bleeding; he jabbed it into his armpit, and continued to climb back. "Ben told me you were an apprentice of his who Turned and killed his other apprentice, Anakin Skywalker. But Breha Organa commented once that Obi-Wan only ever had one apprentice." He shrugged, or as well as he could in his current predicament. "I worked it out from there. Ben confirmed it less than a day ago."

"Obi-Wan is dead-" Vader cut himself off when he realised that it wasn't important right now.

"So, you know the truth! Join me, Luke, and together we can overthrow the Emperor and rule the galaxy as father and son!"

Luke concentrated on his breathing. It had been years in the making coming to terms with this possibility, ever since he'd fully processed the strangeness of the look his father had given him in that Death Star so long ago.

He'd thought about and debated this issue for so long that he knew exactly what to say.

"I can't join you," he said simply. "You want a dictatorship; I want a democracy. You rule through fear; I believe in peace. And I can promise you right now: I will never join the Dark Side."

"I raised you for two years." Vader's voice was. . . guttural. Or at least as far as the vocoder would allow it to be. "And I have been looking for you for twenty. If you think I will let you go so easily, you will find yourself gravely mistaken, my son."

Luke looked up into the eyes of the mask his father hid behind, day in, day out. The stump of his arm burned. "I wasn't giving you a choice."

Then he let go of the gantry.


	10. Luke and Leia Debate

.

 _Luke and Leia Debate With Each Other_

 _3 ABY_

Falling was surprisingly easy, in itself - probably because he didn't have to do anything. The hard part was looking past the feeling of wind against his face, of absolute _weightlessness_ , and reaching out to Leia in faith that she'd hear him.

He'd been told time after time by Rebel Command (and the other members of Rogue Squadron) that his unrelenting faith in his friends would one day get him killed. That one day no one would be there to save him. But something told him Leia had gotten free, and would find a way to help. Maybe it was the Force, maybe it was intuition, maybe it was just an acute knowledge of the way his sister's mind worked. But he believed it.

Even as a part of him said maybe it was just a lie he insistently told himself to try to keep from thinking about what would happen when he stopped falling.

* * *

" _What happened?_ " Leia all but shrieked when Han returned from the top hatch, Luke clinging to him like a lifeline. Her brother had been hanging from the antennae under the belly of Cloud City, and she had no kriffing idea how he'd managed to get up there.

"I'm fine, Leia," Luke tried to say, his voice quiet.

Her eyebrows shot up. "You are _missing_ your _hand_." His eyes sought out the stump in question, faint surprise marring his features, like he hadn't noticed. " _And_ your lightsaber, and you never part with that. Luke, what happened?"

"I fought Vader," he said simply. Han gave him A Look, like he was simultaneously shocked and pleased the kid was still alive, but nevertheless wanted to throttle him for being so reckless. She shared the sentiment - not that she was surprised. This was _Luke_ , after all.

"I _know_ there's more to it than that, Luke."

He didn't answer. And even during the subsequent dogfight and escape, he didn't explain. He didn't explain at all with Han and Lando and Chewie (who was giving her brother oddly understanding looks) within earshot, and only did so when they reached the Rebel flagship and Luke's hand was being treated.

Leia asked him again what had happened, once everyone except the med-droid had left the room, and this time he replied, "I worked something out before I left Dagobah. About. . . our parents."

She felt herself freeze then. "What was it?" came the careful reply. No comment at all on his mention of where he'd been since he last saw her - jumping straight to the heart of the matter.

He said slowly, "Once, years ago, your mother mentioned offhandedly to me that Obi-Wan only ever had one apprentice. Whereas he'd always told me that there were two: Anakin Skywalker, our father, and Vader." He paused, glancing up to make sure she understood the weight of what he was saying. "But there was only ever one."

Luke didn't insult her intelligence by spelling it out for her. So after a moment her eyes blew wide and she felt her breathing stutter. "What- I- _No_." She shook her head vehemently. " _No._ "

Her brother's eyes were sad, and he winced. "I didn't think much of it at the time, but in later years I began to wonder. And then on the Death Star-" His expression turned apologetic as she couldn't quite suppress a flinch, "-I noticed something. . . _odd_. . . about the way Vader acted. The pieces fell together after that. Ben confirmed it before I left to come here."

"Confirmed what?" She didn't know, didn't _want_ to know, why did she even _ask_ -

"That-"

"You know what?" She crossed the room to lean against the wall, not quite looking at her brother. Petty, perhaps, considering Luke had been ordered by the med droid to remain exactly where he was while he was still unaccustomed to the prosthetic, but it wasn't like he wouldn't disobey the orders if he really wanted to. "I don't want to know."

"But yes," Luke said loudly. Pointedly. "It's true. Vader said it was as well, and why would he lie?"

"To mess with our heads."

"I trust Ben."

And therein lay the heart of the problem. They'd both trusted Obi-Wan so much, for so long, but to find out this. . .

If it was a lie, then that meant Ben had betrayed their trust here and now, from beyond the grave. It would destroy Luke.

If it was the truth, then that meant he'd been lying to them - _Leia's parents_ had been lying to them - for twenty years. It would destroy them both.

"No," Leia said again, shaking her head, but the word was weak. Resigned. That the man who'd tortured her aboard the Death Star, tortured _millions_ , was- "How are you so calm about this?"

Luke laughed, but it wasn't his usual laugh. There was no mirth to it. "Oh, I wouldn't call myself _calm_. Not when I know that my idolised father is a homicidal Sith Lord who tortured my friends, cut off my hand, and is dead set on destroying the Rebellion and everything we've ever worked for." His voice softened. "But I've been considering the possibility of it for years, however outlandish it seemed at the time. I'm not surprised - just. . . regretful, about it." _Guilty_ , was what he didn't need to say.

Oh.

 _Oh._

So the self-loathing she'd sensed from him when he'd approached Cloud City. . . "It's not your fault, Luke" She swallowed. "It's neither of our faults."

"I know," he said, the words no more than an exhale of breath. "I know that." _But I don't believe it. I_ can't _believe it._

Leia wished she could comfort him further, but she couldn't - not when she knew exactly what he meant. She rubbed her throat. If only he'd told her about his suspicions sooner, if only she'd been prepared, if only they'd never been Vader's. . . progeny. . . to begin with. . .

But they always had been - that wouldn't change anything. They wouldn't exist without. . . _him._

If only they'd never known - never had to find out. . .

Her father's - her _real_ father's, not _his_ \- voice echoed in her head. _'_ _If only' will help nobody, Leia._

 _I know, Papa_ , she thought, but somehow she couldn't help herself. _I know_.

And despite - or perhaps in spite of - this new knowledge, she only hated Vader more now. More than she had when he'd tortured her. More than she had when he'd stood by as Tarkin blew up Alderaan. More than she had when he'd threatened to freeze Han in carbonite and give him to Boba Fett.

He was the reason they suffered like this. If they'd known who their sire was, if they'd had time to get used to being ashamed-

If he'd been someone they _didn't have to be ashamed of_ -

It always came down to him. Him and his ruthlessness and evil and the legend of the Sith with the bloody lightsaber who had destroyed too many people she loved.

"I hate him." She said the words out loud, still looking away from Luke, even as she felt him looking at her.

Her brother didn't. He didn't hate Vader, because he was more optimistic and forgiving than she was - than anyone else she'd ever met. He didn't hate Vader, because Vader was Anakin Skywalker, and Luke had spent too long idolising the man to fully hate him. He loved too fiercely to consider hatred before considering love - love that the man _did not deserve_.

And his voice was full of the pain that internal battle drew as he said, "I know."


	11. Meeting 5

.

 _Meeting 5_

 _4 ABY_

Life after that continued on at a relatively normal pace, or at least as normal a pace as life in the Rebel Alliance could go. Leia had spoken to General Carlist Rieekan, an old friend of her parents', about the revelation about her biological parentage, so Luke could rest assured with the knowledge that at least one member of High Command knew about it, even if Leia herself didn't count. He never found out the precise events of that particular discussion, but judging by the fact the aftermath was far less explosive than it could've been, he considered it a success.

In short, they were dealing with it. He'd always gotten the sense his sister was a little bit peeved that he hadn't told her of his suspicions sooner, but all in all they were coping fairly well given the circumstances. Some things they spoke about, some things they didn't, some things were flat out ignored by the both of them. Life went on.

But Luke never told Leia word for word what had occurred between him and Vader up on that gantry - and not the least of which because he'd forgotten; the events were pretty much burned into his brain. And today, his mind wandering from the holopad he was trying to read from, his let his thoughts drift back to it.

One sentence that had stood out was the last one his father had said before Luke let go of the gantry.

 _I raised you for two years._

Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru had never explained in detail _when_ he'd come to the moisture farm on Tatooine - only that he had. Nor had they told him who had brought him - though Ben had later explained that it'd been him who dropped him on their doorstep. Never had the issue of what age he'd been come up, and Luke had always assumed he'd been on the planet ever since almost immediately after his birth.

And then there was the other thing Vader had said: _And I have been looking for you for twenty_.

Luke wondered about that even as he was unnerved by it. So if Ben had. . . taken. . . him from his father, aged two, to be raised on Tatooine, then all the while he was playing in the dust and racing speeders and eventually serving as an ensign on Captain Antilles's ship ferrying Bail Organa to the Senate and back ( _right under his father's nose_ ), Vader had been looking for him?

He didn't know whether he was more uncomfortable or wondrous thinking about it all.

And then there was Leia. How had Vader known of his existence, but not hers? They were twins; they'd been born at the same time, in the same place. So if their father hadn't known about her, then he couldn't have been at their birth.

So at what point had the Sith Lord realised his child was alive?

"He caught me on my way to Tatooine from the asteroid field Polis Massa, where you and your sister were born," said a warm, familiar voice. Luke's gaze snapped up. Ben was here, in his strange ghostly form, bathing Luke's minimalistic bunkroom in pale blue light. "I barely escaped with my life. He was feeling vengeful after the events of Mustafar, and he knew enough to guess who the tiny, Force-sensitive baby I held was. He took you away and you were raised on a Star Destroyer for a while."

"A _Star Destroyer_?" That in itself seemed. . . mind-boggling.

Ben nodded. "He had - _has_ \- his castle on Mustafar, but. . . It was not a good place for a baby. The sorrow and hatred there upset you easily, and the fumes from the lava ended up damaging your lungs slightly, enough to give you fatal breathing difficulties in times of duress, which you still have occasionally today."

Luke's hand crept to his throat, even as he asked, "When- When did you-" _Kidnap me? Save me?_

"Two years." Obi-Wan's face was set in a perpetual frown. He looked surprisingly like Uncle Owen had, like the desert had worn away the ability to smile easily. "It took me two years to recover my strength and find a security hole that might enable me to rescue you." Silence fell, and his old friend added into the void, "The world needed you, and your power, Luke. Yoda and I couldn't afford to let Vader raise you in the Dark Side of the Force."

 _So I'm a tool_ , he thought bitterly. _A hero on whom to place all hope, but whose feelings and comfort are never considered_. "And. . . Leia? Where was she during all of this?"

"On Alderaan," Ben said smoothly. "Bail Organa was present at your birth as well, and he'd already taken her to be raised as his and Breha's daughter when I was caught." At Luke's rising question, the ghost continued, "You and your sister were separated for your own protection. The Force was strong with you, in a time when Force-sensitives were hunted down and killed, or turned to the Dark Side. Together, your presence would have been impossible to miss."

 _And apart, you had your assurances that one saviour would not be lost, even if the other was. Apart, you could be assured that the Alderaanian princess, hidden in plain sight, wouldn't garner a second glance. Not when there was a boy with Anakin Skywalker's name living on Anakin's Skywalker's home planet with Anakin Skywalker's step-brother and his wife. Not when there was no way of knowing the mother had had twins._

He knew that bitterness did not become him - was strangely uncharacteristic of him - but he couldn't help it.

Out loud, he said, "Who was my mother?"

Obi-Wan looked sadden by that more than anything else. "Padmé Amidala, former Queen and Senator of Naboo - or Padmé Naberrie, as she was born. Amidala was her professional name. Your father was tasked to protect her shortly before the Clone Wars began, and they fell in love. She died, inexplicably, giving birth to you and Leia - her body was perfectly healthy, but she'd lost the will to live, and passed away anyway."

Why had she died? What had caused her to? How had the romance between an ex-queen and senator and a Jedi Knight gone unnoticed? "Tell me about her."

So Obi-Wan did.

* * *

"Luke," Leia said that evening when they were in the mess hall. "High Command wants to talk to you as soon as you're done here."

Luke had shoved a glob of food into his mouth as she spoke, so his "Why?" came out in a garbled, unintelligible mess. He chewed quickly, swallowed, and repeated the question.

"I can't say," she said carefully, glancing about. The only people sitting near them were Rogue Squadron, and considering Hobbie was trying to see how much food Wedge could cram into his mouth at once and still say their call signs in an understandable voice, Luke didn't think it was the possibility of anyone eavesdropping that had her clamming up so effectively.

He resisted the urge to raise his eyebrows. From his experience during the past ten months, one of the few subjects that she reacted like this to was. . . Vader.

 _Oh no._

He finished up his meal quickly, and he'd no sooner pushed his bowl away than his sister was grabbing him by the arm and yanking him out of the mess hall. Her lips were pressed tightly together, until they went white.

"Is it. . . him?" Luke asked cautiously, not wanting to upset Leia more than necessary. She didn't respond, but her tightened grip was answer enough.

They came to a stop outside one of the cell blocks, typically used for interrogating captured Imperials. Luke didn't know much about what went on it there otherwise - not only was it not his department, but a part of him didn't _want_ to know.

But he could feel a _coldness_ in the Force coming from that room - and not all of it was due to the Sith Lord he was now certain stood behind that door.

He took a breath to steel himself, not surprised to see Leia do the same. Then she pushed the door open.

All the leaders of Rebel Command were standing on one side of a transparisteel one-way mirror, muttering amongst themselves in tones too quiet to decipher. But Luke's attention was drawn to the colossal set of black armour on the other side of the window, and, more specifically, the set of cuffs securing his father's wrists to the table he sat in front of. An empty chair sat on the other side of the table, waiting for an occupant.

Vader's helmet jerked up from where it had been tilted towards the floor, as if he sensed Luke's gaze on him. Somehow, he managed to meet his eye. Luke looked away hastily.

"Commander Skywalker," Mon Mothma greeted, turning from what looked like a heated debate with General Dodonna. "I apologise for the secrecy, but Lord Vader's presence here must be an absolute secret. He was captured by some of our spies on Endor, and offers to give up Imperial secrets in exchange for his life." She paused. "On the condition that you be the one who questions him."

Luke's left hand drifted towards his right, where he rubbed the juncture between flesh and prosthetic. The senator watched the movement, her grave face softening in pity as she did.

"I don't mean to be insensitive to the trauma you suffered, but-"

 _We need that information_ , he finished silently. _And I'm the only one who can sense if he's lying anyway._

"I'll do it," he said decisively.

Mon Mothma smiled, a little nervous. "Then, he's waiting for you in the interrogation room."

* * *

Luke felt the undivided attention of his father fall on him moments before he even opened the door.

He did his best to ignore it, and instead walked over to the other chair and sat down. He had a comlink wired directly into his ear so he could hear what was going on in the adjacent room with Rebel Command, even if there was no way of hearing or seeing it through the transparisteel mirror.

He swallowed harshly when he forced himself to meet Vader's eye. His right hand itched.

 _"Take your time, Luke,"_ Leia said in his ear, accompanied by a wave of reassurance over the bond. _"It's okay."_

He took a deep breath, and began.

"Darth Vader."

His father gave no outward appearance of having heard. Luke gulped, and continued anyway.

"You were captured by Rebel spies on the forest moon of Endor, and offer classified Imperial secrets in return for clemency. Is that correct?"

He hoped no one else was aware of how fast his heart was thundering.

His father shifted in his seat, but the handcuffs didn't allow for much movement, and to his surprise the Sith Lord waited for Luke to finish speaking before doing so himself.

"No," he said. "I was made aware of the presence of Rebel spies on the forest moon of Endor, and handed myself in to them. I defected, and I offer to give up classified Imperial secrets of my own free will. No reward or exchange required."

Luke blinked once. Then twice.

His father was not lying; the Force was clear about that. Not to mention there'd been something akin to regret emanating from him when Luke had stepped into the room - and still was.

He took a breath, and a gamble.

"And the specific conditions for your compliance?" _Why ask for me to be the one to interrogate you?_

 _"It's alright, Luke,"_ Leia said. _"It's alright."_

Vader stilled. "This may not be a conversation you want every member of Rebel Command listening in on, Skywalker."

Ah. So they _were_ going into that territory. "They already know."

Had known for months, when Rieekan had insisted that it couldn't be kept a secret. When Leia had come to terms with the idea that she shared DNA with a mass murderer, and Luke had accepted that he was one brought up by one. General Dodonna had been. . . suspicious. . . upon learning the truth, but Luke's continued loyalty had eventually swayed him, and one could never doubt Leia.

Besides, Luke was the Rebellion's poster boy. Popular amongst the pilots, a good commander, and the legendary hero who destroyed the Death Star. And the only living person who was so much as a close approximation of a Jedi. To kick him out of the Rebellion would be to kick morale in the front teeth.

 _"Don't let him unnerve you, Commander Skywalker_ ,"Admiral Ackbar warned. _"Keep up your guard. You may be blood relations, but he is not above playing mind games with you. If you need to come out at any point, say the word."_

Luke was sure he imagined the sharp intake of breath Vader gave, not to mention the shiver of apparent outrage. "Then I suppose it is no secret that I wanted a way to guarantee that I would speak with you again, in a less. . . hostile. . . environment than our last meeting."

Luke gritted his teeth, for the first time having the urge to cry.

He cut off his hand! He referred to that as simply 'hostile'?!

As if he'd heard the thought, Vader's mask drifted down, until he appeared to be looking at Luke's right fist, sitting clenched on the table. He hastily hid it underneath, irrationally angry and ashamed, Leia's half-hearted assurances ringing through his mind. He sent a wave of equally lacklustre gratitude back at her, and turned to the matter at hand.

"Why would you say you are interested in defecting to the Rebel Alliance?" He hated the flat monotone he said the words in, but if he'd allowed any emotion to show his voice would break, and he didn't think he could stand the indignity of that happening in front of a Sith Lord and the entirety of Rebel Command.

"I witnessed first hand the failings of democracy in the Galactic Republic, but I had faith in the people around me. The people whom I loved. When they were gone, I had no faith left in the system." Luke wasn't sure he was breathing as Obi-Wan's words rushed back to him. Senator - Senator and Queen, his mother had been. "Now I have found my faith to be rekindled."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Vader paused for a moment, as if to make sure his words carried the weight they merited. "I found someone worth fighting for."

There was silence in his head.

Hope - hope, that was _hope_ roiling about that maybe Anakin Skywalker wasn't lost, maybe he could be saved, maybe, maybe, _maybe-_

 _Fear_ , fear that this was a trick, that he was being foolish, stupid, a naïve and idealistic little farm boy from Tatooine again with no concept of how the galaxy worked-

 _Luke?_ Leia's voice filled his head. _Luke, are you alright?_

But he'd already marched out the door.

 _Coward,_ a part of him decried. _You are a coward to run from this_.

 _I am_ human, he screamed in reply. _I am_ human, _and hope can hurt just as much as it can heal!_

 _Luke? Are you alright? Where are you? Luke!_

He barrelled down the hallways in a blind panic, and sequestered himself in a corner to hide for several hours.

And for the first time since Bespin, he allowed himself to cry.


	12. Luke and Leia Cry

.

 _Luke and Leia Cry With Each Other_

 _4 ABY_

Vader knew he had gone too far when his son stormed out of the room like he was fleeing a war zone.

Of course, there were a myriad of ways this conversation could have gone, the best (and most unrealistic) of which being that his son welcomed him with open arms, or at least with the calm assessment he'd shown on Bespin (before taking the irrational, illogical, and utterly unnecessary decision of jumping off a gantry, that is.)

Now Vader suspected Luke had simply been in shock at that time.

The worst case scenario hadn't even allowed him to get this far, or to see his son again - it would have just resulted in those Rebel spies trying to shoot him, having their tracheas mysteriously cave in on themselves for their troubles, and then him being in even poorer favour with the Rebels than he had been previously.

Luke being physically and psychologically unable to confront him wasn't unexpected, just. . . unwanted. Luke shouldn't be afraid of him.

"You cut the boy's hand off, Anakin," Obi-Wan's voice said. The eye pieces of Vader's mask allowed him to see the faintest flicker of blue light in his peripheral vision, but he didn't turn to look at his old master.

Not that he really believed he was _there_ \- it was likely just a manifestation of the unusually abundant guilt he'd acquired in the past few years, Obi-Wan's quick death being one of them. These random visitations of sage, snivelling Jedi wisdom he'd been having ever since Bespin were certainly not his old master haunting him from beyond the grave.

Although if anyone ever worked out how to be an immortal, eternal annoyance, it was Obi-Wan.

Vader ignored him. Eventually the old man went away - _not_ that he was ever there to begin with - and he could focus on the task at hand.

Namely, Luke.

He could sense the Force signatures of Rebel Command just beyond the transparisteel window, and felt it when the heavy shielded presence of Princess Leia Organa fled the room, in hot pursuit of his swiftly retreating son. There was something familiar about her mind, but he brushed it aside for later inspection.

Having interacted with her (exceedingly briefly) in the Senate before, he recognised the presence of Mon Mothma even before she entered the room. There were no apologies made for his son's behaviour - good, none were either wanted or needed - and instead said in a clipped, cool voice, "Since Commander Skywalker is currently indisposed, this interview will be resumed at a later date." She waved in an aide, and the young man went to unshackle Vader's hands from the table, and reshackle them once he was standing.

Vader barely listened to the rattled off pleasantries as he was escorted to a cell.

Luke's reaction to Vader's, in hindsight, bold words had been perfectly justified, and if it was possible, the Sith Lord was _glad_ Luke wasn't listening to the ridiculous "no attachments" mantra Obi-Wan had no doubt tried to beat into his head, instead allowing himself the privilege of feeling. But anger was a go-to emotion for him, and so as he sat in the cell in silence, he fumed.

He fumed at Rebel Command for conceding to his demands, when it was clear Luke had been neither ready nor comfortable with what interviewing him entailed.

He fumed at Leia Organa for being able to go after and comfort his son when he could not do so himself.

He fumed at the Emperor for lying to him all these years, for twisting his perspective on love and family, for giving him that chilling ultimatum to _Turn him or kill him_.

He fumed at Obi-Wan (continuously, even now) for kidnapping Luke in the first place, and placing him in harm's way.

He fumed at himself, for being the sort of person a Rebel commander, fledgling Jedi, ex-farm boy, good hearted young man such as his son would lose a hand to - lose _everything_ to.

But in the end, Luke's actions themselves didn't hurt. He'd known, when he'd. . . defected. . . that it wouldn't be easy. That Rebel Command would probably kill him. That he would be immeasurably lucky to even get as far as he had, without adding in Luke's sentient feelings into the mix, and the fact that maybe he _didn't_ want to confront the man who'd contributed half his DNA and taken his right hand as payment.

He wouldn't stop cooperating, no matter how much this jarred his pride. This was his best chance of getting close to his child without them jumping into the sky. And whilst the Republic the Rebellion was committed to might be corrupt, whilst he didn't believe in what they stood for, whilst he was just as likely to get killed here as he was with the Imperial Fleet. . . Luke might not be subjected to the Emperor. He might be safe, one day.

Sidious might be dead, one day.

So he would stay, and wait, and provide information and credits to help the Alliance. And he would _help_.

* * *

"Luke?"

Leia found her brother after nearly an hour of combing through the dozens of storage rooms used by the Alliance's pilots, which she knew Luke was intimately familiar with having spent hours ferrying spare parts and machinery in and out of them. Even with the Force bond it took her a while to track him down amongst all the boxes.

She found him fiddling with a wrench, what looked like a spare part in his hand. He looked distraught, and he hadn't come close to fixing the part, when she'd seen him repair similar things within minutes. He barely glanced up when she approached, even though she knew he'd sensed her arrival.

"I can't even fix anything," he said dully, staring at the broken part in his lap. "I can't focus long enough to."

Leia sat down next to him, unsure of what to say. She knew what he felt, but she didn't understand the _hope_ that had flared for an instant, in that dingy interrogation room. She didn't understand what had led him, for a moment, to think that Vader might mean what he said. She didn't understand where that forgiveness came from inside him, or how he wasn't able to hate their father for everything the man had done - to them and to the galaxy as a whole.

"You don't have to continue with the interrogation," she said softly. "I'm sure we can find a way to get that information out of Vader without you having to face him. Or we can just go without it. No one's going to make you do anything, Luke."

"I know." He set the part down, and met her eyes for the first time. "And I _will_ talk to him - I can do it." It sounded like he was trying to convince himself more than her. "I just. . . It hurts. It hurts, trying to remember everything he's done, and it hurts being in the same room and feeling that _behemoth_ of a cold, dark Force presence. And the worst part is. . ." He choked on his words, and she rubbed his shoulder sympathetically. He gave her a grateful glance.

"I can _feel_ the light in him. There is still _some good_ , and I- I want to talk to him. Appeal to it. But I can't stop remembering Bespin, and remembering-" He took a breath. "There's still good in him, I _know_ it, but. . . I don't know how to reach it. And when he goes saying things like what he said. . . There is nothing crueller than false hope."

Leia wanted to let him speak, but. . . "There can't be any light in him, Luke. Surely not. He's a monster, tortured hundreds, murdered millions, _cut off your hand_ -"

"I know." His voice was very, very quiet. "I know. But there's light there. I know there is." She'd never heard him sound so certain about anything."

She sighed, and closed her eyes, leaning her head against her brother's shoulder. "What a mess." There was a moment of silence, then, "What are we going to do?"

Luke shrugged. "Interview him, get the information, work it out from there. I _will_ talk to him, and I _will_ forge some type of relationship with him. I- I want to. So I will. Step by step." He repeated it to himself in a murmur. "Step by step."

"You're going to go in there again?" she asked incredulously. "I thought compartmentalising was my job."

Her twin stared at her, at her unexpected comment. Then he stared some more.

And then he bent over double, and laughed.

It was a violent, broken laugh, which soon gave way to sobs. Luke's shoulders collapsed inwards and then he was leaning against her, and she was crying too, and they were both sitting cross-legged in the dust and the dark, leaning back against boxes of miscellaneous broken pieces and parts, tears streaming down their faces.

Somehow, Leia had never felt anything more freeing.


	13. Meeting Infinity

.

 _Epilogue_

 _Meeting ∞_

 _20 ABY_

Things continued as Luke had planned, and he did end up having. . . something. . . with Vader, even if it was tentative and disapproved of and against all odds. Vader did end up giving them world-changing information, and Luke sensed that this, along with his importance to Luke himself, was the only reason Leia tolerated the man.

The trip to Endor came about a few months later, and Luke, Leia and Han were naturally the first ones to volunteer. Vader made it abundantly clear to Luke in their frequent, one on one conversations that when he reported that the Emperor was building a new Death Star his intention had _not_ been to allow Luke to throw himself into further danger. Luke, who'd even begun to enjoy those meetings of theirs and now considered himself on _good terms_ with the Sith Lord, had essentially told him to butt out of his business.

The mission on Endor had gone surprisingly well, despite the last minute discovery that the Emperor himself was personally overseeing the construction of the superweapon. The trio had managed to get the shields down, with a little help from the local wildlife, and the pilots of the Rebellion had blown the thing - with His Imperial Majesty on it - to smithereens.

The war ended shortly afterwards, the rest of the Empire having little idea of what to do now the head of the snake had been severed. The New Republic's flag was flown from the top of the Senate building on Coruscant, and war criminals were put on trial.

Vader's sentence was reduced to an exile on, ironically enough, the jungle moon Yavin 4, partly because of his work with the Rebellion and how it helped end the war, partly because of the New Republic's mandate against public execution. He set up home there and lived a fairly uneventful life. Luke visited occasionally, having established something of a bond with the man during those months before Endor, when he could spare the time, and his sister never visited at all.

They'd planned to never tell Vader of Leia's parentage, but one day a particularly zealous reporter found out, and the whole galaxy learned before the man himself did.

Amidst it all, Vader did perhaps the only thing that might ever come close to improving his image in his daughter's eye: He saved her son.

* * *

The moon of Yavin 4 was just as sweltering and humid as Luke remembered it being two decades ago, shortly before the destruction of the Death Star.

He looked down at the teenager next to him. Ben's hair was oddly neat, considering the rat's nest it usually was, and Luke wasn't sure whether it left him happy or uneasy that his nephew was so. . . _excited_. . . to finally meet his grandfather.

He'd known he was alive, of course - it was no secret in the family that Luke still visited his father regularly, and had even developed a sort of familial bond with him. But Leia had refused to have anything to do with the man, and kept her son away from him as well. Ben had barely even known that Luke's father _was_ Vader, and Luke was sure he only knew that from eavesdropping from the Skywalker twins' arguments on the topic.

But then the galaxy had found out who General Leia Organa's biological sire was. And with it, Ben.

The political upheaval it'd caused hadn't ever died down - rather, it'd become old news. A photo would be released about Leia, someone would compare it to leftover records of the Sith Lord from during the days of the Galactic Empire, random media outlets would start harping on in or against Leia's defence, and then the whole thing would blow over before it started again. And Luke could see the toll it took on his sister, and how very tired she became.

Luke had been facing this for years - he'd never broadcasted that Vader was his father, but he'd never denied it either. And so, to protect her political career, he and Leia had kept their biological relationship under wraps, and Ben grew up believing that the man he called "Uncle Luke" wasn't really his uncle, just a very close family friend.

And hadn't _that_ been a lovely thing to explain when everything had come out.

Ben's strange. . . obsession. . . with Darth Vader had been a worry for his parents for years, and once Ben realised that Luke knew the man personally (was his _son_ ) he'd begged him to let him visit. Luke had always refused; as much as it hurt him to disappoint the kid, Leia's death glares were pretty off-putting.

But maybe a few months after the scandal had been released, Luke had walked into the Solo-Organa household on Ben throwing a teenage temper tantrum, claiming that Vader was _his grandfather_ and that he had the right _to know my own family members_. Han taken a deep breath (and a drink) and dragged Luke aside.

"Can you take him to visit?"

Luke had been taken aback. "What?"

"Take him to visit Vader. Y'know," the smuggler had swallowed then. "Meet his hero and all that. Maybe then he'll idolise the man less, if he finds out the horrible things he did first-hand and what sort of state he lives in now. C'mon, Luke." Han was unnervingly close to begging, now. "Please?"

"Never meet your heroes," Luke murmured, then threw a look at the closed kitchen door. He did not mention that any one of the three them could recount at least a handful of terrible things Vader did - the scars were still, even after fifteen years, far too fresh. He sighed, and conceded. "Alright; I'll take him with me on my next visit."

"Thanks, kid," Han had said, clapping him on the shoulder, smile not quite genuine. He'd never dropped the nickname, even when Luke was beyond what anyone would consider a child. "You take care of him, alright?"

"I will."

So now the two of them were trekking through Yavin 4's humid jungle atmosphere, and his nephew was looking thoroughly disillusioned with his daydreams of the glory of his grandfather.

Or at least, a _little_ disillusioned.

"Does he live in the Massassi temple the Rebellion used as a base?" Ben asked eagerly.

Luke huffed an almost inaudible breath. "No - I'm pretty sure that'd be blasphemy of some sort." _On so many levels_.

"Where does he live then?"

"On a little estate in the middle of the jungle. He rarely goes outside - his respirator's an old model, and can't handle too much humidity, but he refuses to get another one, no matter how much I try to tempt him with promises of advanced technology. . ."

Luke trailed off, suddenly realising how _nice_ it was to talk about his father with someone in a cordial tone, talk about the little quirks and imperfections the man had (and Luke was oddly fond of) that if he mentioned to anyone else - even Han and Leia - all he'd get was disgust.

Not that his nephew idolising his grandfather was a _good thing,_ but _still_.

It was. . . nice.

"What's he like?"

And that was it, wasn't it? The question only his nephew would ever ask him, because some people's actions (rightfully) spoke louder than their words. _What is Darth Vader actually like when he's not trying to kill you?_

"He's. . . strange," Luke surmised weakly. Ben shot him a glance, like there was no way that was detailed enough for him, but that temper of his seemed to let up when he realised (sensed, more like - his nephew was strong in the Force, but Leia had, understandably, never entered him into any sort of training) that Luke wasn't holding back out of reluctance, but out of being at a genuine loss for how to describe him.

They turned another corner on the path, and Luke drew up short when he saw the twisted iron gate amongst the foliage ahead, and the pathway leading into it. "Here we are." Ben looked around, a sort of wonder on his face.

Luke pressed the buzzer, and waited as the silver protocol droid his father had built approached down the (unused) garden path. "Hello, my name is C-4B2, human-cyborg-"

"Yeah, I know. Hi, Forbeetoo."

The protocol droid gasped - really, sometimes he reminded Luke of Threepio in a way that was more than just the type of droid; it was like they were made by the same person or something. "Master Luke! Such a pleasure to see you! And you must be-" He turned to Ben.

"Ben Solo," his nephew replied. "We're here to see-"

"Master Darth," Forbeetoo guessed, and Luke stifled a laugh. The poor droid had never quite picked up that "Darth" was a Sith designation, not his father's actual first name. His father shouldn't technically be going by the name "Darth Vader" at all, but since he refused to reclaim Anakin Skywalker, and a third name would become too confusing, they'd had to make do. "I'll alert him to your presence. Do come in."

Shooting his nephew a quick smile - because _oh,_ wouldn't this be an _interesting_ conversation - Luke followed.

* * *

Vader stared at his grandson and wondered - irrationally, cruelly, unnecessarily - if this was similar to what Luke or Leia had looked like as a teenager, or if he got his looks from that reprobate Solo.

He knew what the Princess had looked like as a child - her face had been all over the holonet, considering Alderaan's status as the most beautiful planet to exist - but one thing that had lingered on his mind since said holonet had so graciously informed him that his son had a twins sister was whether the girl had ever looked as innocent and carefree as Luke - and now, Ben - had.

She probably had.

That was probably just another thing the Empire had stolen from her.

He cleared his throat; Luke had left the room with Forbeetoo, the backstabber, and left him alone with his grandchild, who was now staring at him with wide, dark eyes - _just like his mothe-_ "Why did you want to meet me?" he asked frankly, unable to bear the silence any longer. Silence amongst his talkative family was rarely a good thing.

Ben's face lit up, but he seemed confused. "Why wouldn't I?" His bewilderment felt genuine through the Force, and Vader was stumped as to how someone would look forward to interacting with him so much - other than Luke, of course. But Luke was a remarkably forgiving person. "You're my grandfather! And you're _Darth Vader_! You did all sorts of cool things!"

Vader's bewilderment only grew. "Such as?"

"You wielded a lightsaber! You could choke people without touching them! You were the best star pilot in the galaxy, and the Commander of the Imperial Fleet! You could do _anything_!"

This sort of enthusiasm wasn't the sort the boy might've acquired in the months since he'd learned the truth - it was the sort that was a product of years of obsessive idolisation. Vader, head spinning, was beginning to understand why General Organa had finally capitulated and allowed her son to meet him.

"Your uncle can do those things too, I believe; the difference between a good man and a Sith Lord is that he doesn't."

Ben seemed at a loss at that. He scratched the back of his head, glanced the floor, then back up again. "Yeah, but like, Luke does what the New Republic tells him. He has to. He gets all sorts of fire from the media for his honesty regarding you and your relationship, not to mention other things, and he's as powerless to stop it as Mum is. But _you_ -" At this his face lit up like an ignited lightsaber- " _You_ never were. No one dared to speak out against you."

"I believe," Vader pointed out again, "that your parents and uncle are living proof that that is not true, young one. No one can control what other people say about them."

Ben scowled at the infantile name, but continued, even more invigorated, "But- People died when they insulted you!"

"Because I killed them. Something my son has been lecturing me on the immorality of for more than the past decade. You are aware that killing people is considered wrong by everyone in your family - nearly everyone in the galaxy?"

"Yes," Ben grumbled sullenly. "I didn't mean I want to kill people who insult me, I meant-"

"You don't want people to talk," Vader finished solemnly. "You don't like being in the centre of all the media fire, and people you've never spoken to having negative opinions on you. You don't like people being cruel, so you found a historical figure whom no one dared be cruel to, because he was too cruel in return, and attached yourself to the image. Is that correct?"

Ben seemed left speechless. Vader sighed.

"You cannot retaliate every time someone is mean," the reformed Sith Lord said gravely. "That's something I've learned by the grace of your uncle during my exile here. You have to prove you're better than them. What is that phrase Luke is fond of? You have to be the-"

"You have to be the bigger person," his grandson finished, tone flat.

"Quite." Vader hoped his tone came off as amused as he felt; one could never tell, with the vocoder. "And your uncle always is; physiological impossibility notwithstanding-" Ben had to laugh at that; he'd inherited his father's height, and as such was the same height as if not taller than his mother and Luke. "-he is always trying to be the bigger person. Which is why he still associates with me, even after all the heat the media gives him for it."

"But Uncle Luke _knows how to deal with it_ -"

"He doesn't," Vader interrupted again. "No one does. He just tries to ignore it, and not let it get to him." He sighed. "Your family knows full well the pressures of being in the political eye, Ben." It was the first time he'd called his grandson by his given name. "Trust me when I say, they are exhausted. But Leia has played this role since she was adopted by the Organas. Solo has played this role since he married your mother. Luke has played it since he blew up a Death Star and became a legend."

Vader shrugged. "If you need help dealing with it, ask them. I can assure you, they are never as 'okay' as they appear to be."

* * *

"What did you do?" Leia whispered to Luke a day after they returned from Yavin 4. Ben had already thrown out all the research he'd done on Darth Vader, and had full out admitted to having been contacted by a political extremist group known simply as the _First Order_.

Luke shrugged. "Nothing," he replied. "It was all Father. I just made lunch with Forbeetoo."

Leia glanced at her son's bedroom door, then back at her brother. "You think he'll be alright?"

Luke smiled. Solidarity - familial solidarity, that's what the Skywalker bloodline had always lacked. And now. . . "Yeah." He took Leia's hand. "I think we all will."

* * *

 **Thanks for reading!**


End file.
